December 3’s letter from the very right wing Center of the American Experiment writer included several points about the challenges with MNSure.
While it’s true that MNSure in its current form is imperfect, and costs have surpassed what was anticipated, it’s critical to remember that it’s better than what we didn’t have for those of us who are self-employed, not working, or working seasonally.
What we did have were rapidly escalating monthly premiums and deductibles and the guillotine of preexisting conditions. This allowed insurers like Blue Cross to operate like the monopoly that they are becoming outside of the metro, and cherry pick healthy customers while penalizing lesser fortunate, doing this on all of our backs, including residents and employers of Cook County.
I’m a self-employed small business owner in central Minnesota, and a Cook County taxpayer. Being able to buy insurance along with the pool of Minnesota residents and small business owners participating in MNSure, while still expensive for many of us, has helped us make progress toward more reasonable health care for more of us. MNSure and the Affordable Care Act will eventually push us toward sensible health care for all.
Remember that when we had uninsured residents who needed medical care and visited Sawtooth Mountain Clinic, any unpaid costs were still real and often absorbed by the county and city, if not the state. It’s easy to be critical if you have the syndrome I call CCNP (cushy chair, nice paycheck). What would finally be helpful for Minnesota residents would be to have the Koch Brothersfinanced (among others) aforementioned think-tank actually propose some reasonable, thoughtful, equitable solutions to our health care challenge, rather than just complain about it.
Colleen Hollinger
St. Joseph, Minnesota
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