A town hall meeting Monday about a DFL-backed health coverage initiative drew high-ranking state officials, state representatives and three dozen others in the audience, including Ely resident Teri Haapala.
"Who can afford an 85 percent increase in anything?" she said prior to the event at Duluth City Hall - referring to her monthly premiums which escalate annually while providing her with increasingly higher deductibles and reduced access to physicians of her choosing.
Haapala said health care issues cause her and her family untold stress. She left the hourlong meeting encouraged.
"My hope is that the state of Minnesota can stop the roller coaster - it sounds wonderful," Haapala told officials after hearing about a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party proposal to allow residents who purchase their health coverage on the individual market to buy into MinnesotaCare - a 25-year-old program originally designed for low-income families.
The plan would potentially affect 100,000 Minnesotans who are too young for Medicare and do not receive insurance through an employer. The individual markets, Lt. Gov. Tina Smith said, offer increasingly limited options, including a handful of counties in the state that are routing customers to a single insurance provider.
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"This is causing a lot of people a lot of heartache and angst," Smith said.
The meeting was noticeably bereft of Republican involvement, and the party's dissent to the plan has been told in its refusal to discuss the program or hold hearings, said Dr. Patrick Schoenfelder of Bemidji.
"In medicine," Schoenfelder said, "we call that type of behavior malpractice."
Dr. David Sproat, of Duluth, also provided incisive commentary on the business of modern health care. A 35-year veteran of internal medicine working out of the Medical Arts Building downtown, Sproat said, "patient-centered care is not a new idea. That's the original idea."
American medical practice turned in the 1980s, he continued, when it began to prioritize profits over patients.
"The system makes money on your illnesses - not you being healthy," he said.
The buy-in plan wouldn't raise taxes, officials said, as premiums would pay for coverage. Additionally, the added numbers would give MinnesotaCare extra negotiating clout.
One audience member called it a "no-brainer," while those around the table tried to appeal across the political aisle - despite its seeming absence. State Human Services Commissioner Emily Piper noted that MinnesotaCare originated under a Republican governor, Arne Carlson, as a way to reach the state's most desperate families - currently approximating to a family of four making less than $49,000.
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It's families making even a modicum more that don't qualify for MinnesotaCare and are "really facing a cliff in Minnesota," Piper said.
In order for it to pass through the Legislature in 2018 and become adopted by 2019, Piper said audience members would need to advocate for the plan by telling their friends, neighbors and legislators.
Throughout the discussion, multiple officials conjured the federal Affordable Care Act - forever under fire from the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.
Health care is a discussion that frays nerves, Piper said, and leaves many people unwilling to test their own assumptions out of what she called a fear of constant change.
Said Sproat, "It's like we're fighting this battle all over again."
