Live Blogging HF 3391 Amendments
Rep. Huntley is offering up the first amendment which he calls a "technical" amendment. Rep. Abeler raises to ask what a "legally recognized person" is. Answer is a guardian. Why did you delete the "best part" of the program where the state supervises the process. A: because we are requiring the administrator to come back to the Legislature. The amendment is passed on a voice vote.
The next amendment is from Rep. Thao - the amendment adds oral health professionals to Section 9 on workforce shortages. The amendment passed on a voice vote.
Rep. Holberg has the next amendment and has to deal with data collection and privacy rights issues are. This is considered a friendly amendment from the sounds of it. The motion carries on a voice vote.
Most of the amendments that they are talking about now are technical in nature.
Rep. Olson just gave an interesting speech in support of the Brod Amendment. He talked about how our health care crisis is a crisis in cost shifting and he pointed out the successes of pre-paid health care where the onus of reducing the cost of health care is on the patient and the provider. Kinda what I said before.....
I should add that the Brod Amendment was an amendment to the Thissen Amendment. Most of the amendments to the amendment were to make compliance voluntary and Rep. Thissen just got up and said that it NEEDS to be mandatory or it won't work! You have to be forced into doing what they want in order for this to work???? And they call it reform...
Rep. Liebling has an amendment up and she says that her amendment will change individual mandate (f0r private insurance) but will not change the UNIVERSAL coverage portion. It also changes the starting date of the bill from January 1 to July 1 to allow for more input from rural hospitals. Rep. Dean has moved to divide the Liebling Amendment in two. The Speaker and the clerk are meeting to see if it is divisible. It is and they are voting on the second half of the amendment first.
OK - now they are getting into the meat. Rep. Brod was asking for clarification on how this bill is not considered single payer since people are required to go to their county "agent" to buy the approved plan for their area. Right now they are voting on lines 1.1 thru 1.16 of the Liebling Amendment I'll grab that shortly. Here is a link to the amendment. What currently seems to be the point of contention is lines 1.14 to 1.16 where it dictates what benefits are covered. The covered benefits include interpretive services, chemical dependency, mental health coverage and other high cost services. Rep. Seifert moved to split lines 1.14 thru 1.16 out and vote on the seperately. These two lines were adopted 84 - 49 on a roll call vote.
Attn: Gary Gross - Rep. Larry Hosch actually gave a decent amendment. His amendment states that medical services and technologies are not denied services based on age and disability. That has long been one of my problems with universal health care because Universal Health Care has long had a history of doing so.
Rep. Gottwalt is making some good points. He mentioned that he gets frustrated when people say that we "don't have a system" that Minnesota AGAIN was just rated the healthiest state in the nation, that we have the best access to healthcare that we have the best outcome of healthcare IN THE NATION! And yet the Legislature wants to completely undo that in favor of single payer in a bill that will bankrupt the state.
WOW - I am in absolute AWE....Rep Laura Brod has just given the most empassioned defense of choice (real choice) and the family and not having the government take over decisions that a family should make. I can't even begin (without the benefit of a rewind button) to give you the full impact! I will have to do a recap post just to include her defense of keeping government out of the day to day decisions of the families of Minnesota! This is all in defense of Rep. Dean's amendment. Rep. Tom Emmer just had an exchange with Rep. Huntley that is going to have to get the same treatment that Rep. Brod's remarks get. It was too important to not be covered en toto.
Rep. Huntley, in an exchange with Rep. Olson, stated that he talked about the NE Journal of Medicine's article (and he did) earlier and it said that health care homes and managing chronic care and the payment reform were all mentioned in that article. One problem...he ONLY mentioned payment reform in his previous remarks. He did not ONCE mention the other two itens in connection with the NE Journal of Medicine article!
One of the recurring themes of the opposition to this bill is the fact that if this bill does what the authors say it will, the system will go bankrupt in 2 years and at that time the state will be forced to take people OFF of the health plan in order to keep it afloat.
Rep Gottwalt is up again - this time commenting on the stack of "endorsement" letters from the medical community on this bill and he mentioned that these letters do not fully endorse the bill as written. He quotes the MMA letter where it strongly opposes the payment form that is in the Senate version of this bill. The Mayo Clinic expresses concerns of unintended consequences for national health care provides like Mayo! The "endorsement" letters actually show that the endorsers have concerns about the bill going in the direction that it ended up going in! He quotes one rural care center who fears that this bill will set back care delivery in rural Minnesota!
OK - I got majorly interrupted. Lots and lots of phone calls. Gary probably knows what I missed....
Ooooo this amendment is going to spark fireworks. Rep. Dean has put forward an amendment that basically would require checking citizenship status of applicants to the program! Oh yeah - lots of fireworks, but in the end Rep. Dean withdrew his amendment.
OK that last amendment was an interesting one. Rep. Finstad offered up an amendment that would require that all women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound first. One or two Democrats stood up to give a rather perfunctory opposition to the amendment and then Rep. Abeler told the story of his brother. When his mother was pregnant she was told that the baby was hydrocephalic and would not survive birth. When the child was born the doctor was wrong. It was a very touching story. The amendment failed BARELY 64-68.
Rep. Kohls has an amendment on the floor which would change the affordability standard. Right now households making up to 400% of the poverty level (up to approximately $80,000 a year) would qualify for health assistance. The floor arguments are how to pay for that out of the health impact fee (smoking tax revenue and remember...they want to eliminate smoking as part of their health care plan...). The bill right now has no plan on how they are going to pay for the program. It will simply be studied and reported on in a year!
We are closing in on the 5 hour mark (in case you were wondering) and there is another amendment on the floor. This one by Rep. Holberg. It was not passed.
HUZZAH!!!! Amendments are done. Now comes the debate on the bill as amended....NEW POST!
The next amendment is from Rep. Thao - the amendment adds oral health professionals to Section 9 on workforce shortages. The amendment passed on a voice vote.
Rep. Holberg has the next amendment and has to deal with data collection and privacy rights issues are. This is considered a friendly amendment from the sounds of it. The motion carries on a voice vote.
Most of the amendments that they are talking about now are technical in nature.
Rep. Olson just gave an interesting speech in support of the Brod Amendment. He talked about how our health care crisis is a crisis in cost shifting and he pointed out the successes of pre-paid health care where the onus of reducing the cost of health care is on the patient and the provider. Kinda what I said before.....
I should add that the Brod Amendment was an amendment to the Thissen Amendment. Most of the amendments to the amendment were to make compliance voluntary and Rep. Thissen just got up and said that it NEEDS to be mandatory or it won't work! You have to be forced into doing what they want in order for this to work???? And they call it reform...
Rep. Liebling has an amendment up and she says that her amendment will change individual mandate (f0r private insurance) but will not change the UNIVERSAL coverage portion. It also changes the starting date of the bill from January 1 to July 1 to allow for more input from rural hospitals. Rep. Dean has moved to divide the Liebling Amendment in two. The Speaker and the clerk are meeting to see if it is divisible. It is and they are voting on the second half of the amendment first.
OK - now they are getting into the meat. Rep. Brod was asking for clarification on how this bill is not considered single payer since people are required to go to their county "agent" to buy the approved plan for their area. Right now they are voting on lines 1.1 thru 1.16 of the Liebling Amendment I'll grab that shortly. Here is a link to the amendment. What currently seems to be the point of contention is lines 1.14 to 1.16 where it dictates what benefits are covered. The covered benefits include interpretive services, chemical dependency, mental health coverage and other high cost services. Rep. Seifert moved to split lines 1.14 thru 1.16 out and vote on the seperately. These two lines were adopted 84 - 49 on a roll call vote.
Attn: Gary Gross - Rep. Larry Hosch actually gave a decent amendment. His amendment states that medical services and technologies are not denied services based on age and disability. That has long been one of my problems with universal health care because Universal Health Care has long had a history of doing so.
Rep. Gottwalt is making some good points. He mentioned that he gets frustrated when people say that we "don't have a system" that Minnesota AGAIN was just rated the healthiest state in the nation, that we have the best access to healthcare that we have the best outcome of healthcare IN THE NATION! And yet the Legislature wants to completely undo that in favor of single payer in a bill that will bankrupt the state.
WOW - I am in absolute AWE....Rep Laura Brod has just given the most empassioned defense of choice (real choice) and the family and not having the government take over decisions that a family should make. I can't even begin (without the benefit of a rewind button) to give you the full impact! I will have to do a recap post just to include her defense of keeping government out of the day to day decisions of the families of Minnesota! This is all in defense of Rep. Dean's amendment. Rep. Tom Emmer just had an exchange with Rep. Huntley that is going to have to get the same treatment that Rep. Brod's remarks get. It was too important to not be covered en toto.
Rep. Huntley, in an exchange with Rep. Olson, stated that he talked about the NE Journal of Medicine's article (and he did) earlier and it said that health care homes and managing chronic care and the payment reform were all mentioned in that article. One problem...he ONLY mentioned payment reform in his previous remarks. He did not ONCE mention the other two itens in connection with the NE Journal of Medicine article!
One of the recurring themes of the opposition to this bill is the fact that if this bill does what the authors say it will, the system will go bankrupt in 2 years and at that time the state will be forced to take people OFF of the health plan in order to keep it afloat.
Rep Gottwalt is up again - this time commenting on the stack of "endorsement" letters from the medical community on this bill and he mentioned that these letters do not fully endorse the bill as written. He quotes the MMA letter where it strongly opposes the payment form that is in the Senate version of this bill. The Mayo Clinic expresses concerns of unintended consequences for national health care provides like Mayo! The "endorsement" letters actually show that the endorsers have concerns about the bill going in the direction that it ended up going in! He quotes one rural care center who fears that this bill will set back care delivery in rural Minnesota!
OK - I got majorly interrupted. Lots and lots of phone calls. Gary probably knows what I missed....
Ooooo this amendment is going to spark fireworks. Rep. Dean has put forward an amendment that basically would require checking citizenship status of applicants to the program! Oh yeah - lots of fireworks, but in the end Rep. Dean withdrew his amendment.
OK that last amendment was an interesting one. Rep. Finstad offered up an amendment that would require that all women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound first. One or two Democrats stood up to give a rather perfunctory opposition to the amendment and then Rep. Abeler told the story of his brother. When his mother was pregnant she was told that the baby was hydrocephalic and would not survive birth. When the child was born the doctor was wrong. It was a very touching story. The amendment failed BARELY 64-68.
Rep. Kohls has an amendment on the floor which would change the affordability standard. Right now households making up to 400% of the poverty level (up to approximately $80,000 a year) would qualify for health assistance. The floor arguments are how to pay for that out of the health impact fee (smoking tax revenue and remember...they want to eliminate smoking as part of their health care plan...). The bill right now has no plan on how they are going to pay for the program. It will simply be studied and reported on in a year!
We are closing in on the 5 hour mark (in case you were wondering) and there is another amendment on the floor. This one by Rep. Holberg. It was not passed.
HUZZAH!!!! Amendments are done. Now comes the debate on the bill as amended....NEW POST!
Labels: Universal Health Care
posted by The Lady Logician at
3:11 PM
2 Comments:
Will you be doing a summary after today of the outcome. I'd love to post what you have on my site.
By
Americas Small City Mayor, at 5:54 PM
Larry Hosch isn't my representative. That'd be Rep. Larry Haws. Here in St. Cloud, we talk about Sen. Clark, her liberal brother Larry & her other liberal brother Larry. Haws is also known as Grampa Larry because he looks like Wilford Brimley.
On last thing: Don't confuse Tarryl's brothers Larry with Larry Howes from Walker.
By
Gary Gross, at 7:59 PM
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