HometownSource Blogs

House Health Care and Human Services Finance Committee Chairman Tom Huntley, DFL-Duluth, and Senate Health and Human Services Budget Committee Chairwoman Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, and others just returned from Washington — they serve on a White House working group on health care.

The lawmakers seem upbeat about the prospects of a health care bill landing on the desk of President Obama.

If it does, if it’s signed, it will be the biggest health care reform in more than 40 years, one said.

“That’s the one we’re rooting for,” said Berglin of health care legislation in the U.S. House, legislation with a public option, unlike the U.S. Senate.

The trio of lawmakers, Rep. Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul being the third, reported that officials in Washington are trying not to craft legislation that disrupts the health care system currently in Minnesota.

Minnesota, Huntley said, is 20 years ahead of some southern states in shaping its health care system into a more efficient whole.

But it can always get better, he said.

Huntley cautioned that even if federal reform legislation passes, it will not lighten the state’s responsibilities for years as the reform may not fully kick in until 2014.

“So we have an interim problem,” said Huntley.

Taking questions, Berglin restated her doubts about Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s recent health care reform initiative, specifically the proposal of allowing Minnesotans to purchase health care insurance from other states if the out-of-state companies meet certain criteria.

“Selling insurance across state lines will not lower the cost of health care,” she said.

Asked about Republican objections to a Washington-based approach to health care reform — the idea of opting out — Huntley explained that could lose the state some $360 million in federal funding for starters.

If you want to exempt yourself, you’re “kissing that money goodbye,” he said.