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Capitol View®
Catharine Richert

Revised HHS budget banks bigger cuts

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Due to clerical errors, House Republicans had to do some last minute revisions to their Health and Human Services spending bill for the coming biennium.

Instead of cutting about $1 billion from administrative costs associated with Medical Assistance, ending MinnesotaCare and delaying insurance company payments, the new total is about $1.2 billion in cuts over two years.

Here are two big ways the numbers have changed in the last 24 hours, since House Republicans unveiled their massive spending bill.

  • Eliminating MinnesotaCare, a public health program for people who make too much money for Medical Assistance but not enough to buy a plan on their own, will save $563 million over two years instead of $849 million as the committee's number crunchers initially predicted. The difference is the result of a clerical error. That number doesn't include premium subsidies Health and Human Services Chair Matt Dean, R-Dellwood, has promised to help current MinnesotaCare enrollees buy a plan on the state's health insurance exchange once MinnesotaCare ends. Ultimately, the savings could be even lower, but Dean hasn't hinted at how much he wants to offer in premium support.

  • Another big change is a line-item that was left out of the initial budget: The bill now requires the Department of Human Services to save $300 million by verifying that everyone on public programs, like Medical Assistance, is eligible. Two similar bills sponsored by Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa and Rep. Nels Pierson, R-Rochester, that would have required the Department of Human Services to conduct an eligibility audit were priced much lower than that - roughly $18 million for the biennium.

Republicans want to cut taxes and spending, and the health and human services budget cuts will give them leeway to meet that goal.

Democrats, on the other hand, have said that no cuts are needed with a $1.9 billion surplus.