As SCOTUS Upholds Affordable Care Act, MN GOP Calls For MNsure's Demise
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act, Minnesota critics of the health care law are not ending their fight to repeal it.
And state Republican leaders are calling for an immediate halt to any more spending on MNsure, the state's health care exchange.
"There's no reason to continue throwing good money after bad at this point," Minnesota State Rep. Tara Mack said.
Top Minnesota Republicans, like Mack -- chair of the House Health and Human Services Reform Committee -- say they are pushing to stop an imminent infusion of up to $90 million more into the once-troubled website.
They are calling for the state to abandon MNsure as we know it, and partner with the federal government's HealthCare.gov.
"I think the bottom line would be we would scrap MNsure, and go to a hybrid system where we wouldn't have a state-run exchange," Mack said, "We'd go through the federal exchange, while the Department of Commerce would still maintain the ability to approve which plans are sold."
From Washington, Minnesota reaction to the ruling split along party lines.
Democratic Sen. Al Franken called it, "a huge victory for millions of people across the country … to have access to affordable health care."
Republicans like Rep. John Kline continued the call for repeal, calling the law, "fundamentally flawed, and it doesn't change our resolve to repeal it."
At the State Capitol, Gov. Mark Dayton said the time for legal challenges to the health care law is over, and he urged Republicans to work with him to make it better.
"To have some stability, to have the constitutionality of a major law like this be challenged again and again is really disruptive to the country," Dayton said.
Dayton says lawmakers should wait until a Blue Ribbon Health Care Commission report back in January is released before deciding what, if any, changes should be made to MNsure.