With Health Care for Over 80,000 Minnesotans on the Chopping Block, Congressman Hagedorn STILL Won’t Stand Up for MinnesotaCare

Hagedorn is the only member of the MN Congressional Delegation who has not asked federal officials to reconsider cuts

Today, MinnPost reported that Trump Administration officials are set to decide whether or not Minnesota “will lose millions in Federal health care funding currently used to provide health care to around 89,000 Minnesotans.” As the paper wrote last month, Congressman Jim Hagedorn is the lone member of Minnesota’s bipartisan Congressional Delegation who did not sign on to a letter in support of the MinnesotaCare program. Instead, Hagedorn took a different stance, choosing not to ask the CMS to reconsider the changes.

According to MinnPost:

The new formula has been denounced by the Minnesota Medical Association, the Minnesota Hospital Association, and most of the Minnesota congressional delegation.

“What we’re simply seeking is that the Federal Government adhere to the Affordable Care Act in providing the resources to the Basic Health Plan,” said Doug Wood, a doctor at the Mayo Clinic and President of the Minnesota Medical Association.

The Minnesota Hospital Association called the recently proposed changes to the formula an “arbitrary, capricious and blatantly self-serving decision based on how a formula can be manipulated to reduce the amount of BHP payments to states.”

In a bipartisan show of support, nine members of the ten member Minnesota congressional delegation sent a letter to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma asking them to reconsider the methodology change. (Rep. Jim Hagedorn, MN-1, sent his own letter that did not take the same stance. His office said that he does not yet have enough information to ask CMS to reconsider the changes.)

“This might be hard for Washington Republican Jim Hagedorn to understand, but the cost of health care is by far the biggest concern of hardworking Minnesota families,” said DCCC Spokesperson Brooke Goren. “It’s now incumbent on Hagedorn to explain to the more than 80,000 Minnesotans who rely on MinnesotaCare why he supports efforts to take away their health care.”

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