Minnesota Single Payer Report Rose Roach Executive Director Minnesota Nurses Association

The Current Landscape In Minnesota we are lucky to have Governor Mark Dayton, who is supportive of Single Payer healthcare and has said he would sign a single payer bill if one comes to his desk. Our state legislature [UPDATE WITH RESULTS OF 2016 ELECTION.] A DFL majority, of course, does not equal a majority for Single Payer. Democratic Farmer Labor party (our version of the Democrats), many of whom support single payer, but many don’t.

Minnesota Healthcare Landscape MN Healthcare Landscape Our Governor has a habit of being very honest. When premium increases of 50-67% for individual plans on the MNSure exchange were announced, he said that “the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable.” About 5% of Minnesotans buy an individual insurance plan. Unfortunately, while being true, the Governor’s statement lacked any blame for the insurance companies who raised the rates, and instead he went straight to a proposal to use tax dollars to subsidize individuals’ premium increases.   In Minnesota, insurers are currently making record profits, with the bulk of that coming from our programs to cover the poor and low-income workers. Medicaid is especially profitable. The insurers also have significant reserves, far beyond what they would need to comply with best business practices. At the same time, the state has no authority to demand access to the insurance companies’ books. They were able to raise premiums on individual plans by 50-67% yet never had to show why those increases were necessary, or where else they might have been able to make up for losses in that small market The GOP has used healthcare to attack DFL candidates. Specifically, they have pinned the massive premium increases on individual health insurance plans on the Democrats. MNA put out a joint press release with our allies, and created messaging for candidates and our member volunteers to make sure the voters know the blame for those failures should fall squarely on the insurance companies, who continue to make massive profits off of public programs with little to no accountability. Unfortunately the dominant narrative still seems to be “Obamacare/MNSure is raising your premiums.”

-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Healthcare Justice and Racial Disparities While Minnesota is often listed at the top of the list of healthiest states and states with the best healthcare, the truth is that we have some of the worst racial health (as well as economic and educational) disparities in the country. So while we have a very low uninsured rate, for example, people of color in Minnesota have poorer health outcomes than whites in areas including birth weights, obesity, diabetes and mortality. Mortality rates are three times higher for U.S. born African Americans, and 3.5 times higher for American Indians than for whites. Our urgent fight for healthcare justice is part of the urgent fight for racial justice in Minnesota.

“I don't believe there's any problem in this country, no matter how tough it is, that Americans, when they roll up their sleeves, can't completely ignore.”

The Grassroots Movement in MN Minnesota is lucky to have many organizations, large and small, that actively support and work for single payer healthcare. Unfortunately, our statewide organization, Healthcare for All Minnesota, suspended its work in 2014 due to budget shortfalls. As a result, the many organizations who care about healthcare justice have been working in silos. The Minnesota Nurses Association created a new staff position to focus solely on single payer, and among other things, her job has been to coordinate the work of individual and organizational grassroots allies and facilitate a long-term planning process that will help us get to single payer in Minnesota in the next few years. The Grassroots Movement in MN

2017 Legislative Session 2017 Legislative Session [UPDATE AFTER ELECTION] Assuming the 2016 election goes our way, and the DFL retains control of the state Senate and gains control of the House, we will hit the ground running, lobbying legislators about the failures of our current healthcare system and the long-term goal of a single payer system. Our legislative champion, Senator John Marty, will reintroduce the Minnesota Health Plan, a state-based single payer program that would cover all Minnesotans for all medically necessary treatment and would be progressively financed.   We also want to focus in the short-term on offensive legislation that will expose the insurance companies as the villains they are, profiting off of our sickness and tax dollars, without having to account for the way they use those dollars.

The Minnesota Health Act Beyond 2017 We believe that it will take a few more years to build our base to create the crisis (that we know exists but doesn’t seem to register with the public), change the narrative from one that blames government to one that blames corporate insurance, and collaborate with legislators to create good policy that will bring healthcare for all to Minnesota. Those of us working on single payer in Minnesota feel that if we work together, devote resources and spend time organizing, we can create a publicly-financed system that provides healthcare for all Minnesotans in the next few years, and can lead the way for the rest of the country.