Health bill heads to negotiations

ST. PAUL — Competing Minnesota House and Senate health-care reform proposals are headed to negotiations amid warnings Gov. Tim Pawlenty will not support either plan.

Rep. Tom Huntley, DFL-Duluth, said a bill the House passed late Thursday does more to shake up Minnesota’s health-care system than has been done anywhere in the country, and that makes it widely controversial.

“Every single person in the health-care system is nervous, but every single one of those people wants changes,” Huntley told representatives before they voted 83-50 to send the bill to a conference committee.

The Senate already passed a version that goes further than the House bill, including assessing fees on hospitals and health insurers to fund state health-program expansions.

Both bills attempt to slow rising health-care costs, add thousands of low-income Minnesotans to a state-subsidized health insurance program and change how health care is funded.

Republicans faulted the House plan because it is paid for solely with nearly $300 million in the Health Care Access Fund. They claimed the bill within five years will bankrupt that account, which collects a tax on health-care providers to fund health insurance for low-income Minnesotans.

They said there is no plan to pay for the reform after 2012, other than to raise taxes or boot people from state-subsidized programs.

“The bill in its current form will not be signed,” said House Minority Leader Marty Seifert, R-Marshall.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty did not go that far on his Friday radio show, but called the Democratic-written bills flawed. But he added that it could be fixed in upcoming negotiations.

“Democrats in many cases just want to expand government programs,” the Republican governor said.

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