Minnesota House passes $300 million health premium rebate plan
The bill approved Thursday in the House would provide rebates for many of the approximately 123,000 Minnesotans who buy insurance on the individual market and do not qualify for subsidies to help with their surging premiums. It includes several other provisions
Late additions to the bill included a measure to create a farmers' health care co-op and one that would allow insurance companies to offer policies that do not cover all benefits mandated under federal law.
The specifics of the House bill, passed on a vote of 73-54, differ from those in the more streamlined,
The bill will move next week into a conference committee that includes members of both the
House Speaker
"The reforms in this bill are good and important, and we hope the governor will see it that way as well," he said.
Lawmakers from both parties have spent the first few weeks of the legislative session asserting that quick premium relief is an urgent priority. Bills in both chambers raced through a series of committee hearings at an unusually fast pace, leading to objections from DFLers who said the
DFL lawmakers repeated those concerns in a lengthy debate Thursday, pointing out that state budget officials had not yet been able to provide a full financial analysis of the
Those officials testified in legislative committees that the rebate portion of the bill, which would be administered by the state, could cost
Both the governor's bill and the
Dayton's plan would provide a 25 percent discount that would be administered by insurance companies, appearing directly on people's bills in the form of a lower monthly premium.
All individual market customers who are not eligible for subsidies would see the discounts.
Under the
Several said they are also troubled by additions to the House bill, particularly the one that would allow insurance companies to offer plans that could exclude coverage of conditions ranging from autism to diabetes.
Rep.
"You are not dealing with it as if it's a crisis," she said. "Here we are, creating a bill that's going to go to conference, and not going to be signed."
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