Letter to the Editor:

Minnesotans Not Split Over Need for Increased Access to Health Care
In the January article by Kip Sullivan entitled “The movement for universal health insurance splits,” TakeAction Minnesota, and the health care policy legislation our organization supports, was represented inaccurately. Contrary to Mr. Sullivan’s assertions, and the article’s title, Minnesota does NOT have two wings within the movement for universal health care.  Most Minnesotans truly concerned with health care access (for themselves, for their kids) aren’t split over anything.  And this number is increasing given the growing number of job losses in our employer-based system. 

TakeAction Minnesota supports both Senator John Marty’s “Minnesota Health Act” legislation (S.F. 118, H.F.135) and the “Minnesota Health Security Act” (S.F.9, H.F. 174) authored by Senator Tony Lourey and Represen-tative Paul Thissen. Why?  Because both bills represent methods to greatly increase
health care access for Minn-esotans, a growing majority who have been left without health care by the employer-based model of health coverage. The “Minnesota Health Security Act,” which is currently moving through the state legislature, would help to create more and ever-bigger pools of health insurance which would help mitigate the long-term health care costs to our state budget and pave the way toward the creation of a single-payer system.

The Minnesota Health Security Act is founded on three core principles of longer-term reform: (1) Severing health care coverage from employment. (2) Like public education, every child has access to care no matter their immigration status, parents’ income, or where they live. (3) Moving toward a single, universal, statewide program of health care coverage  

The notion that the Minnesota Health Security Act would “strengthen the insurance industry” as Mr. Sullivan opines is also false.  Just ask the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, which has testified in opposition to the bill.

Despite what it would seem from the January article, TakeAction Minnesota is actively working for the passage of single-payer legislation in Minnesota. To achieve single payer, we need to take strategic steps forward that will chart the path toward single-payer, and help us build our power to counter the tremendous influence of the health care industry.  The Minnesota Health Security Act lays out a strategic path to build toward single-payer by first covering all children in the state, regardless of who their parents are, under one public program, severed from employment. This critical first step builds the foundation to then move forward on improving how health care is delivered in Minnesota.    In this tough political environment, it is critical that we put in place stepping stones that build the policy framework and political power to transform health care. 

At the same time, we cannot afford to allow thousands of Minnesotans to lose access to the care they currently have due to budget cuts and the recession.  That is why the “Minnesota Health Security Act” is one of five pieces of health care legislation TakeAction Minnesota is supporting this session. Take-Action Minnesota is committed to organizing to build the necessary grassroots power
to govern so that universal health care access is achieved in our state. Our health care policy agenda is developed as a result of, and to support, our organizing efforts.   There remain very few in this state—beyond those already affordably covered and with the luxury of time to study the problem—who are wedded to a specific method of achieving universal health care access. Most Minnesotans just want access to the health care they need, when they need it.

Dan McGrath, Executive Director, TakeAction Minnesota

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Kip Sullivan’s reply
The focus of my article was not TakeAction.  The article was about two Minnesota coalitions that have taken different approaches to achieving universal health insurance. The coalition TakeAction belongs to the Make Health Happen coalition, which has not endorsed the Minnesota Health Act (MHA), Minnosota’s single-payer bill. At the time I wrote my article (late January), none of the eight organizations in that coalition mentioned the MHA on their websites. TakeAction’s website now mentions the MHA. My article gave credit where credit was due. I stated explicitly that some of the members of TakeAction’s coalition, including Take-Action, have endorsed the MHA, and that two members of the coalition (including Take-Action) spoke favorably about the MHA at a single-payer rally on Jan. 5.

Dan’s letter does not dispute my statement that the Minnesota Health Security Act (MHSA), which TakeAction and its coalition support, would enrich the insurance industry, the most powerful opponent of single-payer legislation, and thus make the struggle for single-payer legislation more difficult. He asserts only that the Minnesota Council of Health Plans testified against the MHSA (this occurred at a House hearing on Jan. 28, 2009). This, however, was merely clever lobbying by the Council designed to defuse the criticism that the MHSA will funnel hundreds of millions of tax dollars every year to the insurance industry, criticism that some single-payer advocates publicly leveled against the MHSA for the first time in mid-January.

The insurance industry has indicated in numerous reports, Op-Eds and presentations to legislators that it supports legislation like the MHSA, which insures more children as long as the insurance industry is allowed to serve as the middleman between the taxpayer and the clinics and hospitals that treat children. The MHSA consists of the Children’s Health Security Act, a bill that passed the House in the last session of the legislature as House File (HF) 1, plus a provision calling for a study on how to cover all adults. When HF 1 was heard in February 2007 in the House health committee, the Council of Health Plans, represented by Phil Griffin, testified enthusiastically for it and praised the bill’s chief author, Rep. Paul Thissen. Griffin, who identified himself as “a contract lobbyist for UCare and Preferred-One” and a representative of “the eight members of the Minnesota Council of Health Plans,” said: “We would like to express our support for the efforts of Paul Thissen to expand coverage to uninsured children ... You should be proud of these efforts ... HF1 is a laudable effort to provide coverage to children who make up a large portion of the ... uninsured.”

Kip Sullivan