Fixing health care in state difficult when the feds’ plan is unknown

Republicans want to fix MNSure, which grew by 8 percent in SE MN in 2016.

Work on changes to Minnesota’s health care exchange are taking place this week in St Paul.

That, even while significant questions linger about what federal lawmakers will do to change the Affordable Care Act.

State rep. Greg Davids (R-Preston) says he likes some of what he’s heard.

“What they’re looking at is block grants to the state, which would be good because Wisconsin legislatures know what needs to be done in Wisconsin, better than somebody from Wyoming,” Davids said. “And Minnesota knows better than someone from Iowa.”

During his joint address on Tuesday, President Donald Trump, again, called on Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare. That puts a little wrinkle in what people like Davids can do.

“It makes it very difficult, as a state legislature to try and figure out how to repair something, when you don’t know what the feds are going to do,” Davids said. “We’re going to be setting our budgets. We’ll be out there the third week in May. 

And, what have the feds done? We don’t know what they will do up to that point and, after that, do we have a special session?”

MNSure has apparently struggled with signing up enough people for private insurance, having insurers back out of the exchange and soaring cost increases. But, in Southeast Minnesota, signup numbers grew by 8 percent in 2016.