Sen. David Hann follows a strictly ALEC agenda - and we know for sure that Senator Chris Gerlach is an ALEC member. As ALEC has the gutting of ALL ObamaCare and state health plans, this comes as no surprise. Be nice if the press would mention these FACTS. Their pamphlet on gutting Obamacare is well known. What strategy should be used, was hotly debated at the ALEC convention this month, as this link will show. Gerlach is on the ALEC task force on Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development which indicates he has been given corporate orders. No legislation gets by an ALEC member without corporate participation.
Minnesota Republicans demand role in state insurance exchange
Updated: 08/16/2011 11:52:34 PM CDT
Republican lawmakers said Tuesday that Gov. Mark Dayton lacks the authority to proceed with a federally funded health-insurance exchange for Minnesota, and they vowed to try to block the effort.
GOP members generally oppose the idea of an exchange - an online marketplace that would allow consumers to compare and buy coverage - but if the state is going to have one, the Legislature must be involved in developing it, said Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
"We don't think that a significant step of this nature should be taken unilaterally by the governor," Hann said at a news conference. "We are going to pursue every means available to us as a Legislature to prevent that from occurring."
Asked if that could include court action, Hann said, "If that's the avenue that we have to pursue, absolutely."
Hann and other Republican legislative leaders spoke out Tuesday in response to the announcement last week that Minnesota would receive $4.2 million to help set up an exchange, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
"We're surprised by the Republican legislators taking this tack," responded Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman, whose department is leading the effort to establish an exchange in Minnesota.
The exchange plan was in the Commerce Department budget, Rothman said, and lawmakers were notified about the recent federal grant as well.
Minnesota must act now to get its exchange ready by Jan. 1, 2013, with implementation the following year, Rothman said. If it does not, "the federal government will step in, and Minnesota will be subject to a federal exchange."
Sen. Chris Gerlach, R-Apple Valley, chairman of the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee, said Republicans "have grave concerns over Gov. Dayton's willingness to fully embrace the federal Obamacare."
He said he plans to hold hearings early next session on the issue and urged Dayton to partner with Republicans in opposing the federal program.
Language that would have blocked state money being spent to implement the health care overhaul until its constitutionality had been settled was removed in the final health and human services bill.
But that doesn't give Dayton the right to move ahead on the exchange plan without involving the Legislature, Hann said.
"He's acting as if the state of Minnesota was an administrative function of the federal government, and it isn't," he said.
Doug Belden can be reached at 651-228-5136.
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