Back in February things were looking good for a single-payer health plan in Minnesota. Under the plan, citizens would pay insurance premiums to an independent health care board which would be monitored by the state government. The board would pay health care providers directly.
Three months later, it’s all over—the weak-kneed, insurance-friendly non-alternatives have won. Senator John Marty‘s (DFL-Roseville) bill was voted down 8-3 in committee. Representative Ken Tschumper‘s (DFL-La Crescent) companion legislation never even got a hearing in the State House.
It didn’t help that chair of the State House’s health and human services committee, Representative Paul Thissen (DFL-Minneapolis), authored the insurance-friendly competing bill. In the State Senate, Senator Linda Berglin (DFL-Minneapolis), authored a companion bill to Thissen’s.
Meanwhile, the Marty/Tschumper contingent scramble to remove the host utterly harmful aspects of the Berglin/Thissen legislation that clearly favor the insurance industry.
It’s not that Berglin and Thissen don’t support a single-payer system; they likely do. They just consistently—and conveniently—claim that it’s not realistic at this time.
If not now, when?
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