Center for Health Care Affordability<\/a>. The center was created by lawmakers in 2023.<\/p>\nThe task force heard from the state\u2019s health department and state health economist about the current state of health care.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealth care spending at an individual level is the single largest expense for Minnesota households,\u201d Stefan Gildemeister, the state health economist.<\/p>\n
Gildemeister said health care spending is a substantial amount of the state\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
The Minnesota Department of Health reported that 76% of Minnesota adults are concerned about affording health care, and 45% struggled to get health care over the past year because of cost barriers.<\/p>\n
The department also found 1 in 4 Minnesotans with chronic conditions didn\u2019t get needed medical care due to cost in the past year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are proud in Minnesota [to] have high coverage rates, we have high quality care, we have world-class innovation, but none of that matters if people can\u2019t afford to use the system,\u201d said Carol Backstrom, the state health department’s assistant commissioner.<\/p>\n
Backstrom said the state has needed a dedicated focus on affordability for a long time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are facing federal funding cuts and have already experienced some of those and that will likely result in thousands of Minnesotans losing their insurance coverage, and of course with more people going without insurance, care will be less affordable for all, hospitals will see sicker patients that will result in uncompensated care, and health insurance premiums for insured people are likely to go up,\u2019 Backstrom said.<\/p>\n
Director of the Center for Health Care Affordability Alex Caldwell said this is the first time the state has invested in health care affordability.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States pays far more for our health care than the rest of the world, and we don\u2019t get better and better outcomes for that, and part of it is the way our health care system is designed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Caldwell said the task force will have to tackle big questions like the drivers behind growing year-over-year costs, policy solutions, and what are the tradeoffs. She said their goal is to keep more money in Minnesotans’ pockets.<\/p>\n
\u201cA second group will come together later this year called the Payer and Provider Health Care Advisory Task Force, so that group will be providing input as well to the center, sort of as a compliment to this Health Care Advisory Task Force,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Caldwell said the task force will be together for two years and will likely form another once their time is up. She said they\u2019ll meet every other month or quarterly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The task for held it’s first meeting Friday morning, and it was open to the public. MINNEAPOLIS \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-152568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}