Plan would require all Minnesotans to buy health insurance

Every Minnesotan would have to buy at least basic health insurance by January 2007, and health plans would have to offer it at a price that couldn't vary based on a person's age, gender, health history or status, two lawmakers proposed Tuesday.



Their bill, based largely on recommendations from the Minnesota Medical Association, doesn't say what the essential package would cover, what it would cost or how the costs might be subsidized.



Still, its authors, Anoka Republican Rep. Jim Abeler and Sen. Sheila Kiscaden, an Independence Party member from Rochester, said the plan would provide all Minnesotans with affordable insurance and boost the quality of care while holding down costs.



The "Physicians Plan for a Healthy Minnesota" also calls for increasing the cigarette tax by $1 a pack. The money would help pay for Minnesota-Care, a state-subsidized health-insurance program for low-income Minnesotans, which would still be available.



Under the MMA plan, everyone would pay the same premium for the most basic medical benefits because risk would be spread statewide, but individuals could pay more to upgrade, Kiscaden said.



The measure would require the state Health Commissioner to come up with a plan by the end of this year to enforce the requirement.



Minnesotans are already among the best-insured in the nation. Surveys by the Minnesota Department of Health and other organizations estimate 6.7 percent -- about 343,000 Minnesotans -- were uninsured last year. But that's worse than 2001, when about 266,000, or 5.4 percent, were without health insurance. State business and political leaders say health-care costs of the uninsured are eating away at their budgets.



"We do have one of the healthiest states and do have one of the highest rates of people with health insurance. However, we are having more and more people who do not have health insurance" largely because some employers are dropping coverage and MinnesotaCare has tightened eligibility requirements, said Dr. Judith Shank, a Wayzata dermatologist and chairwoman of the Minnesota Medical Association's health-care reform task force, whose recommendation formed the basis of the bill.



While no cost estimates were available, the physicians' group assumes that in the long run, the plan will save money.



The proposal is the first of its kind in the United States, said Roger Feldman, a health-care economist at the University of Minnesota.



"We're breaking new ground, although the thing it's most similar to is auto insurance. We have a law that says if you want to drive a car, you have to have insurance. Without those laws a lot fewer people would have auto insurance. We decided that it's really important to do that," said Feldman, who supports the general idea of mandatory health insurance.



"The notion of everyone having some sort of coverage with a basic benefit set is something we really endorse," said Julie Brunner, executive director of the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, a group that represents Minnesota's major health plans.