Sen. David Hann, the leading health care expert in the Senate, just told Gov. Dayton the health care exchanges called for by the Affordable Care Act won’t get examined until after a new congress is sworn in:
In his letter, Dayton said that Democrats and Republicans share the responsibility for creating a Minnesota exchange, or else the state will be forced to accept a federal model for how the marketplace should function.
“By working together, we can make this project non-partisan and maximize its benefits for all Minnesotans,” Dayton wrote, suggesting that action is needed since the U.S. Supreme Court in June upheld the constitutionality of the health law.
But Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, responded that “there is nothing more partisan than this health care law given the way it was passed.” No Republicans voted for the measure when it was passed by Congress in 2010.
“Most people don’t like this law,” Hann said. “As a practical matter, the Legislature will not be in session until January…Let’s give the public a chance to weigh in on this during the next election.”
What Sen. Hann is saying is that exchanges won’t get a hearing until a new president and new Congress have a chance at repealing the Affordable Care Act.
Sen. Hann also let it be known that talk of bipartisanship with regards to implementing provisions in the Affordable Care Act aren’t going anywhere after Democrats shoved it down Americans’ throats without their consent.
Now that Democrats don’t have the ability to shove wildly unpopular legislation down the American people’s throats, their tone changed from I won to ‘Let’s work together in the spirit of bipartisanship.’
It’s refreshing to hear Sen. Hann essentially say that the bipartisanship will start after the new Congress and new president repeal the Affordable Care Act.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Gov. Dayton attempt to establish these exchanges via executive order. He’s tried implementing things that way before. The good news is that the courts slapped him down before for attempting to enact legislation without subjecting the bill to legislative scrutiny.
If there weren’t strings attached to the exchanges through the Affordable Care Act, they’d be a fine idea. Since these exchanges have to comply with the minimum requirements of the federal government, things like providing free contraception coverage would be required of these exchanges.
Minnesotans would reject that without hesitation. So should the legislature.
Tags: Affordable Care Act, Exchanges, Mark Dayton, Contraception, DFL, David Hann, Health Care, MNGOP, Election 2012
“… given the way it was passed.” I agree that with so much off the table at the start, and with Blue Dogs, it is less than it should have been. But that is the fault of no Republicans having the national interest in mind ahead of partisan lockstep with leadership obstruction. Nobody but GOP leadership is to blame for that, except those who blindly took marching orders.
Eric, why won’t you learn that the federal government interfering in health care is the cause of the problem?
Yesterday, it was announced that the federal government paid out $14 billion in fraudulent unemployment checks. Tens of billions of dollars are paid out fraudulently on Medicare & Medicaid claims.
When did it become in the national interest to have tens of billions of dollars paid to crooks?
Tear off the ideological blinders. Pull your head out of your ass, too. Then start thinking things through.
Do those things & you won’t make stupid statements as much as you’re currently doing.
The problem with Medicare (and Medicaid) fraud is that the vast majority of it ISN’T FRAUD at all. It is the natural reaction of the marketplace to the artificial and arbitrary price controls that are at the heart of Medicare. A doctor that gets paid only half of his costs for seeing a patient is going to take the few extra minutes to do something “extra” that pays better, or he can’t afford to see that patient at all. That’s bad for the patient, needless to say. If we got rid of the “fee for service” model of government health care, all of that fraud would go away immediately, the quality of care (fewer largely unnecessary procedures) would improve and the cost would drop dramatically. Obamacare simply goes in the opposite direction from what’s needed and it should have been voted against by any Congressperson with a brain. I guess we have the measure of THAT now, don’t we?
Jerry, that rationalization is stunning. Your argument appears to be that the villain isn’t the doctor who files a fraudulent bill. It’s the government that underpays him, causing him to act dishonestly.
The doctor has the responsibility of being honest. PERIOD.