October 28, 2019
Friends and Neighbors,
In 2019 we passed a health and human services budget to protect nursing homes, support mental health resources, and set accountability standards for the Department of Human Services.
Below are a few of the highlights.
- A Blue Ribbon Panel to Eliminate Waste
- The Panel is tasked with finding savings within Minnesota’s Department of Human Services (DHS). In recent years DHS has been at the center of a number of controversies, including recent reports that they paid out $3.7 million to people that had already passed away. We will continue working to hold DHS accountable and protect your tax dollars. If you have any feedback or ideas, we would love to hear them! You can submit your ideas at the website below. Submissions are due by midnight on Nov 3. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. https://mn.gov/dhs/hhsbrc/contact/
- Stopping child care assistance fraud
- We cracked down on the ongoing child care assistance fraud scandal. We included stronger oversight measures and stricter reporting requirements that will restore integrity to the program and combat fraud.
- Supporting individuals with mental health struggles
- Research shows 1 in 25 Minnesotans suffer from a serious mental illness, including a growing number of young people. Senate Republicans prioritized more resources to help Minnesotans battling mental health crises and additional support for people of all ages working on their mental health recovery.
- Supporting people with disabilities
- Our budget eases the financial burden on families who have children with disabilities by reducing TEFRA fees, which help these families become eligible for affordable Medical Assistance coverage. Some people with disabilities have actually had to pay out of their own pockets in order to receive Medical Assistance benefits. This process is known as “spending down,” and can become incredibly expensive for individuals who are on fixed incomes. This budget eliminates the discriminatory and unfair spenddown practice.
- Saving nursing homes from cuts
- Despite a $1 billion surplus, there were proposals to cut up to $200 million of funding to nursing homes (many in rural Minnesota) making it more challenging to recruit and retain caregivers. But, we protected nursing homes from those cuts and secured funding, providing a rate increase for disability and elderly service providers, and making it easier for nursing facilities to expand.
- Protecting Minnesotans from a government takeover of health care
- Senate Republicans successfully defeated Gov. Walz’s proposed OneCare program, the massive government takeover of health care that the governor made a priority.
Please let me know if you have any questions or comments! I always appreciate hearing from you. You can reach me at 651-296-5981 or sen.bruce.anderson@senate.mn.
Sincerely,
Bruce