As the shutdown continues, focus remains on the temporary, pandemic era Obamacare subsidies for those who make more than 400% of the federal poverty guideline. For a family of four, this is $128,600/year. This represents around 22,000 people in the Obamacare marketplace in Minnesota, meaning 99.6% of Minnesotans would not be impacted by the loss of this subsidy. Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has cited this as the reason the government is shut down and wants to start a debate about public subsidies for health care in Minnesota.
Bring it on! But let’s pass a clean CR first. Minnesota has the best health care in the world, but the way we pay for it is crazy and unfair. Those who pay for their health care pay more and more to get less and less, while those who pay nothing, get more and more. That’s unfair and that trend went off the charts in 2023 when democrats in Minnesota went on a liberal bender after seizing a trifecta, controlling both chambers of the legislature and the governor’s mansion.
As we begin this statewide debate, here are five things Senator Klobuchar hopes you will not learn:
- Senator Klobuchar voted to end the pandemic subsidies, no republicans joined her.
Ending the temporary covid subsidies was a democrat initiative in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Not a single republican voted for it house or senate. Perhaps it was too long ago for the legislators to remember, but the same folks carping about sunsetting the subsidies, wrote and voted for the bill that does just that.
- A 2023 democrat trifecta in Minnesota passed all kinds of mandates that will cause health insurance rates to continue to skyrocket even if pandemic credits are extended.
Here are the individual market rate changes submitted for 2026. These are the cost increases without the spike caused by the sunsetting of covid subsidies. These include mandates for care as well as who gets that care. These increases are entirely separate from the COVID subsidies set to expire. These are largely a bill coming due from a democrat trifecta in 2023 in Minnesota. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce says this will cost $113 million. While O3B requires an annual check of eligibility, MN now guarantees insurance companies six years of payments for any baby born in the state.
| Minnesota Health Plan Rates 2026 | |
| Insurer | Average rate change from 2025 to 2026 |
| Blue Plus | 18.70% |
| HealthPartners, Inc.* | 13.31% |
| HealthPartners Insurance Company* | 19.15% |
| Medica Insurance Company | 30.76% |
| Quartz Health Plan MN | 7.40% |
| UCare | 27.48% |
Source : https://mn.gov/commerce/insurance/health/consumer-protections/rates/approved/2026/
- Able-bodied people who choose not to work receive $9 from the feds for Medicaid, while Minnesotans who are considered 100% disabled receive $1.33.
To incentivize states to sign up for expansion of Medicaid through Obamacare, the ACA bribed states with money to expand Medicaid (a federal health insurance program aimed at helping people with disabilities) to people who were low income or those who refused to work. This forced people out of the private insurance market and warped the market away from lower cost plans. In non expansion states like Florida, many of these folks are in the private market and off the dole (working).
- The number of people on subsidized plans doubled since the pandemic and nearly half of all payments made are taxpayer dollars.
The temporary enhancements of Obamacare tax credits was aimed at keeping people insured during the pandemic. In just five years, the people covered under subsidies doubled, with the taxpayers picking up the lion’s share of most of the policies, and nearly half the total cost.
- There are more illegal aliens on MinnesotaCare than there are people who stand to lose enhanced 400% FPG pandemic subsidies.
Minnesotans are paying 100% of the cost of more than 20,000 illegal aliens currently on MinnesotaCare. The premium-supported that began in 1992 in Minnesota has become almost entirely taxpayer funded since Obamacare.
If democrats agree to a continuing resolution to reopen the government (a clean CR), republicans are open to negotiating health market changes to address these and other cost inflators with their counterparts on the other side of the aisle. The cost of smoothing the cliff is relatively small. It could easily be found by addressing just a small portion of the waste not immediately recognized within the Big Beautiful Bill.
Senator Klobuchar should stop holding the country hostage, pass a clean CR and negotiate in good faith to improve care for Minnesotans and the country.
https://paragoninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/8.1MS_new-FMAP-7-PIC-01.webp
