Committee Unveils Bill To Dismantle Health Care Law
ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- It's the one-year anniversary of the controversial federal health care law and it's still making waves in Minnesota. A state Senate committee unveiled a bill that dismantles many parts of it.
It's a bill cutting $1.6 billion from Minnesota health care programs and eliminates many of the health care programs for poor and elderly.
The bill cuts as many as 100,000 low income Minnesotans from health care rolls and deeply cuts money for hospitals and nursing homes.
The bill would also sharply restrict services for mentally ill and eliminate money to set up new federal health programs.
"We cannot afford to continue to see the kinds of costs that we have seen in this budget area over the years, many of which are driven by decisions made outside of the state," said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, the authors of one of the bills.
"I am pretty sure this bill is going to be vetoed," said Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis. "I could list off -- but I don't have enough fingers -- the reasons."
Also on Wednesday, Gov. Mark Dayton ramped up his own skepticism of how much Republicans claim they are cutting from health care. He calls the numbers "made up" and is signaling that this bill won't go very far if it stays the way it is.
