Twenty years ago, Minnesota policymakers created MinnesotaCare to ensure that low- and moderate-income working families could have access to affordable health insurance. This innovative achievement has allowed hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans to purchase affordable insurance for themselves and their families.
We have the opportunity to maintain that commitment to affordable, comprehensive health insurance as federal health care reform moves forward, but it means we’ll need to create the next generation of MinnesotaCare.
A new issue brief from the Minnesota Budget Project and Legal Services Advocacy Project lays out how the Affordable Care Act requires some changes to MinnesotaCare to make it compatible with new standards – and preserve the legacy of MinnesotaCare.
The Basic Health Plan: The Next Generation of MinnesotaCare explains that the state can preserve MinnesotaCare by taking advantage of an option in the Affordable Care Act to create a Basic Health Plan.
Preserving MinnesotaCare through a Basic Health Plan would have many advantages, including the fact it would protect affordable health insurance with comprehensive benefits for 120,000 Minnesotans. It would also provide the most cost-effective option for insuring low- and moderate-income working families because the federal government could pay for the entire cost.
The brief details how the Basic Health Plan would work and why it’s the best option for Minnesota.
-Christina Wessel
