By Joe Spear
Free Press editor
Minnesota House and Senate passed the stopgap bill to continue the health care program for the poor in Minnesota with overwhelming veto proof majorities.
The governor vetoed the bill from Washington, setting up an intriguing possible override vote.
Quick details here.
This bill had real outstate implications.
Costs were likely to hit hospitals in outstate Minnesota hard if they had to start giving away charity care to all the people without insurance. Emergency rooms would be filling. Also, lots of rural districts mostly represented by outstate Republicans have a significant amount of people on these plans.
In the Mankato region, here are the numbers for GAMC enrollment and medical costs associated with these people for 2008.
County----------------GAMC -----Cost------Cost/person
----------------------- enrollment
Blue Earth County-----209----------$2,200,000---$10,526
Brown County---------41------------$502,986-----$12,267
Faribault County------21------------$455,189------$21,675
Le Sueur County------51------------$823,417------$16,145
Nicollet County--------62------------$890,298-----$14,360
Sibley County---------23------------$314,008------$13,652
Waseca County--------56------------$559,675------$9,994
Watonwan County-----19----------$232,269----$12,224
Totals----------482----------$6,885,294----$14,284
A switch to MinnesotaCare as the governor had proposed leaves an average cost overrun of $4,000 per person because MinnesotaCare only covers up to $10,000. If nothing is done, hospitals in the state estimate this would cost them $90 million.
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