Category: John Kline

by Dave Mindeman

I was doing some research on John Kline's take on health care at the health care summit last week. I was wading through some of the nuances of AHP's and Exchanges. As I was going through it, I got a link to MN Central's post on the same subject. It's perfect and I encourage you to read the entire summation:

Does John Kline Relate to John Q. Public ?

That post captures everything I read about in exactly the right context. Since I am not going to try to improve upon it, I just want to highlight a couple of things.....like this:

Actually, the Urban Institute (which is a source that Mr. Kline has cited before) presents a strong case for the Democrat proposal that John Q. Public should like :
-- New insurance market regulations would prohibit preexisting condition exclusion periods.
-- All those enrolling in insurance coverage through the proposed national or state health insurance exchange would have the option of remaining in the exchange, even if they change employers or leave the workforce.
-- Some financial assistance to the low income to cover some of the cost sharing associated with health insurance.

Kline wants small business associations...allowing smaller companies to join together to make larger groups. He also wants them to have the ERISA exemptions that have been granted to large corporations. These special regulations allow the large companies to be exempt from local state regulations and mandates. The idea being that since these large corporations have employees scattered across the country, it would be a nightmare to comply with each different state requirement.

Except, the large corporations by the nature of their size also have a large enough risk pool to absorb everybody.

Smaller companies tend to self-insure with a catastrophic cap. That generally means that they cover their own health care costs via an administrator (like United Health Care or Blue Cross handling the administration); and if cost exceed a maximum, a regular insurance policy kicks in.

Since small companies have by nature a much smaller group of employees -- they can get hurt by a small number of employees having particularly expensive health problems.

If they were allowed ERISA exemptions, which Kline pointed out specifically in his part of the health care summit, they can free themselves of state regulations -- even if all of their employees reside in just the one state.

This might even lead to changing their health policy to exclude patients with a particularly unusual health condition...or at least setting up a pre-existing exclusion for this problem in the future.

Republicans are for getting rid of pre-existing conditions in the general sense except when they are not in the specific sense.

That is why we are having the "risk pool" (Republican preference) vs "exchanges" (Democratic preference) debate.

Exchanges would require companies who participate in the exchange to meet the minimum Federal requirements and that would most assuredly preclude the pre-existing condition rejection from ever occurring.

Maybe the exchanges wouldn't meet all of Minnesota's care guidelines, but they would prevent Kline's AHP's from manipulating the systme themselves.

In addition, the exchanges would be able to give employees health insurance options. They could remain in the exchange if they choose to retire early or change jobs. That kind of flexibility would not be available in the GOP methodology. Unless you leave and join a company in the same AHP insurance pool, you start over.

I hope I have characterized all of this correctly...it can be a complicated subject and I defer to MNCentral's more in depth research on the matter for any corrections.

One thing I am sure of -- if Kline likes something, it is most assuredly good for business at the expense of the employee.

Another great post on this topic from MNCentral:

MN-02 : Should Kline Blame Bush, Coleman or himself for AHP Failure?

MNDEM sends Kline a letter:

Congressman John Kline, there is no freedom, no pursuit of happiness, no American Dream, if we are slaves to health coverage.

Holly Cairns joins in as well:

John Kline: Best Health Care in the World

Category: DFL Gov 2010

by Dave Mindeman

I know that Minnesota Progressive Project is doing a running total already on this, but it can't hurt to have another source to look at. This is a preliminary list in the DFL Governor's race of what I have been able to glean from various report I have seen. A lot of the county units don't publish reports right away, so it is difficult to see what is going on outstate. But this is the counties and senate districts I have been able to find...with totals.

Counties and SD reporting that I have currently:

Senate Districts: 5-35-37-38-39-43-46-47-49-58-59-60-61-62-
63-66.

Counties: Hubbard, Nicollet, Waseca, Winona, Swift

That totals 362 delegates as near as I can tell; Totals so far:

Uncommitted.....146
MAK..................73
Rybak................59
Thissen..............36
Rukavina.............22
Marty.................19
Bakk...................6
Entenza...............1

With so many uncommitted delegates it will be very difficult to get a clear picture of where things stand.

Now -- if anybody has additional information about delegate selection in district or county units not listed above, I'd very much appreciate a report. And please, if a delegate is from an uncommitted caucus, report it as such -- if you happen to know which way they are leaning it would be great to hear that, but do not report it as an official delegate for that candidate.

Send the information to my email: dmindeman06@yahoo.com

Thanks -- hope to have updated information as we go.

Category: DFL Gov 2010

by Dave Mindeman

Spent a long day at the Senate District 37 convention in Rosemount. The attendance was nowhere near what it has been over the last 2 cycles, but I guess this is going to be a tougher year for Democrats.

This district has an incumbent House candidate on the 37B side, Phil Sterner. And today we endorsed a good, young candidate for the 37A side in Derrick Lindstrom. He will be opposing a freshman GOP legislator, Tara Mack.

In the State Senate seat there was a contest between Roberta Gibbons and Mike Germain. Germain ran against Chris Gerlach in 2006, losing by a 54-46 count. Gibbons, a former District chair, ran her first legislative campaign. Germain won on the second ballot.

All of them will have tough elections and all of them will have to depend on limited resources. This district has never been a good place for fundraising.

During the day, surrogates for the Governor candidates popped in and out. The only actual candidate was Tom Rukavina....and he gave his usual crowd pleasing performance. Attorney General Lori Swanson, whose home base is Eagan, just north of us, stopped by to let us know she is looking for re-election as well.

When it came to delegate selection, the majority of sub-caucuses stayed uncommitted. Everybody is still waiting for that unknown moment when an obvious candidate emerges. We've been waiting a long time....and I guess we are all convinced it will still happen.

Anderson Kelliher has 2 committed delegates; Paul Thissen and R.T.Rybak each had one. Four delegates caucused for Congressional candidate Shelley Madore. The remaining 10 all came out of uncommitted caucuses. From what I could tell, there aren't many real leaners in that group either -- the uncommitted part is pretty accurate (Note: I am one of those uncommitted delegates).

On the Congressional side of the ledger, Shelley Madore and Dan Powers both spoke at the convention. Since this is Shelley's home district, she got the most positive response and felt the most comfortable. She not only got 4 committed delegates, she probably has at least 5 more of the uncommitted. But that was to be expected on her home turf. I didn't see any indication that Powers gained any delegate support yet in this district. Although there are several toss-ups in the remaining groups.

Long day....long process. Onward we go.

Update: Dan Powers does have one delegate, for sure, in the uncommitted governor delegates.