True North

Lori Sturdevant's column in the Star Tribune on April 19 included some unfavorable references to Minnesota Majority, characterizing our position on the so-called health care 'reform' bill as "misinformation".  We submitted the following letter to the editor to offering evidence in support of our position, but the Star Tribune predictibly refused to publish our letter.  They seem to be more interested in advancing the liberal agenda rather than informing their readers on both sides of the story.

Our Letter to the Editor of the Star Tribune

General Mills Communications VP Thomas Forsythe characterized Minnesota Majority’s assertions about the health care ‘reform’ bill as “misinformation” in Lori Sturdevant’s April 19th column. Forsythe decried a statement on our website saying that the bill will “create new layers of government bureaucracy, add thousands of people to taxpayer subsidized health plans, grant government access to private medical records and intrude into personal health care decisions”. But one need only read the 100+ page bill to discover that these statements are accurate.

For example, the Care Coordination Advisory Committee; Health Care Home Collaborative; Health Care Transformation Commission; Uniform Outcome Measures Working Group; Health Benefit Set and Design Advisory Committee are just some of the new bureaucracies specifically established by the health care bill. Other layers of bureaucracy are implied by numerous regulatory mandates included in the bill.

Article 2, sections 7 and 12 of the bill will increase enrollment in government welfare health plans by raising income limits to 300% of poverty guidelines ($60,000 a year for a family of four). Article 3 section 4 of the Senate bill pays a bounty to organizations that recruit new enrollees to become dependent upon state-sponsored health plans.

Government agencies are grated access to patients’ private medical records in the House bill through Article 1 Section 6, Subdivision 2 “Monitoring and Evaluation”; Article 1 Section 6, subdivision 6 “Annual Reports”; Article 4 Section 11, subdivision 2 “Encounter Data”. These are just a few examples of numerous provisions for the government collecting patient medical records.

The Health Benefit Set and Design Committee will design uniform health insurance benefits, which would micromanage an enrollee’s treatment options (Article 4 Section 3 of the House bill). Other provisions in the bill call for bureaucrats and legislators to determine what procedures are “cost effective” and may be covered by standardized benefit sets.

The bill sets the stage for a government takeover of our health care system by outlining specific health coverage goals in Article 4 section 4 of the House bill. The only way in which these goals could possibly be met is through a government-mandated universal health care plan.

Real health care reform that delivers measurable cost savings to Minnesota families can only be achieved by reducing (not increasing) government involvement, allowing out-of-state insurance providers to compete for our health insurance business and putting patients back in-charge of making their own health care purchasing decisions.

TAKE ACTION

1. Send a note to the Star Tribune letting them know what you think about their biased reporting.
2. Send a message to Governor Tim Pawlenty urging him to veto the health care bill.

Cross-posted at Minnesota Majority. Comments welcome.