DFL lawmakers and the Minnesota Department of Human Services are pushing back against claims Republicans made earlier this week about the impact undocumented residents are making on taxpayers through a state-funded health care program.
Four Republican lawmakers said at a Monday news conference that expanding access to MinnesotaCare is incentivizing more undocumented immigrants to move to Minnesota, increasing costs for taxpayers. They raised alarm that a high number of undocumented Minnesotans are enrolled in the program.
They also blamed Democratic lawmakers for stalling negotiations to pass the larger omnibus health finance bill because they rejected Republican proposals that would ban undocumented Minnesotans from MinnesotaCare. The health finance bill includes a variety of smaller bills, such as new provisions on assisted living, funding for abortion and establishing a rural medical assistance program.
Senator Alice Mann, DFL-Bloomington & Edina, said the Republican lawmakers were “lying,” or are not aware of how funding MinnesotaCare works. She expressed concern that their arguments reflect anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies espoused on the federal level.
“A healthier population means more economic growth for the state, so it just makes financial sense to give people health care,” said Mann, who is vice chair of the Senate’s health and human services committee. “And I think most importantly we have to stop playing politics with people’s lives.”
MinnesotaCare is a state-funded health care program operated by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) that provides coverage to low-income residents. A bill passed in 2023 expanding the program to include undocumented residents; actual coverage began this January.
DHS spokesperson Jen Amundson confirmed that the rate of enrollment among undocumented residents is higher than expected, but that it’s too early to predict the long-term impact, and that ultimately, providing preventative care reduces costs to all Minnesotans and the strain on emergency care services.
There are 17,396 Minnesotans enrolled in the program identified as undocumented, Amundson said in an email statement to Sahan Journal.
Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, authored the House’s 2023 bill expanding MinnesotaCare coverage. She said Republican lawmakers are seeking to “divide our communities” by wrongly arguing that helping undocumented residents will lower the quality of healthcare coverage for Minnesotans.
“We should be embracing each other, because we’re going to need each other with everything that’s going to be coming from the federal government – all the cuts that they’re talking about that’s going to affect everybody regardless of what your status is,” Agbaje said.
Republican Representatives Issac Schultz of Elmdale Township and Jeff Backer of Browns Valley, and Republican Senators Jordan Rasmusson of Fergus Falls and Paul Utke of Park Rapids, said Monday that the increased enrollment would cost taxpayers more than $600 million over the next four years.
“If we go at the rates that we’re doing or even half [of] it, we’re talking about a huge amount of money that won’t help the healthcare for our law-abiding citizens here, residents of Minnesota,” said Backer, R-Browns Valley. He is also co-chair of the House’s Health Finance and Policy committee.
Backer’s assistant told Sahan Journal he was unavailable for comment. The other three lawmakers did not respond to requests for comment.
Amundson said 3,378 undocumented residents have claims for healthcare services as of April 1, and that $3.4 million in claims have been paid to such clients, which is below projections.
“Three months of data does not provide enough experience to project expenditures for covering this population over the next four years,” she said, referring to the Republicans’ $600 million figure.
The Republican lawmakers also claimed that coverage is free and paid 100% by taxpayers. But that’s inaccurate, according to DHS.
“It is funded through a combination of state funding and premiums paid by the enrollee,” Amundson said.
Undocumented Minnesotans also contribute to taxes that help fund MinnesotaCare coverage, DFL-lawmakers say. In 2022, undocumented Minnesotans paid about $222 million in state and local taxes, according to the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a nonprofit tax policy organization based in Washington D.C.
Rep. Robert Bierman, DFL- Apple Valley, chair of the House’s Health Finance and Policy committee, said he is unsure when the House or Senate will vote on the final version of the omnibus bill or specific bills on MinnesotaCare coverage.
Republican lawmakers said they have proposed nine different versions of the omnibus bill in negotiations, and that Democrats turned them all down.
Bierman said none of those proposed offers would have allowed MinnesotaCare coverage to continue for undocumented residents. The disagreement is a “significant one,” and there are only a few weeks left in the legislative session for negotiations and a final vote, he added.
“What their argument is is that [the program] is in such excess to what was budgeted that we need to change course midstream right now,” he said. “But DHS stats are not telling us that as of today.”
