Freedom Line Blog

The largest player on Minnesota’s ObamaCare exchange is dropping out, and not even the promise of federal subsidies can get it back.

Earlier today PreferredOne – an insurance company that covered 59 percent of Minnesota’s ObamaCare population – announced that it will not offer health care plans next year paid for with ObamaCare subsidies.

Apparently, the decision is being driven by high administrative costs associated with doing business with MNsure. Even after hiring an additional 50 workers to handle the exchange’s post-launch fixes and tweaks, PreferredOne says continuing to participate is financially unsustainable.

The move makes it likely that MNsure’s ObamaCare rates will jump since PreferredOne sold the lowest cost option. Those rates will be released sometime in October – just weeks before the midterm elections.

Annette Meeks, CEO of the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota, offers this damning editorial of Democratic Governor Mark Dayton’s decision to shut down the state’s government rather than sign a balanced budget without tax increases.

Among the bevy of withering arguments against Dayton’s action, Meeks points out that the budget passed by the legislature actually increased state spending by 6 percent while filling a $5 billion deficit.  The problem for Dayton: no soak-the-rich “millionaires’ tax.”

Like President Barack Obama with the nation’s debt ceiling, Governor Dayton is playing a dangerous game for the sake of fiscal discrimination.  Moreover, Dayton is unwilling to consider the state equivalent of a continuing budget resolution.

I’ll give Meeks the last word:

Last week, Republican legislative leaders, in a desperate move to stave off closing the government, proposed a “lights on” budget resolution that would have allowed services to continue while negotiations continued. In a crass, cynical move, Dayton rejected this good-natured offer.

We are here for one reason — Dayton. He insists upon inflicting as much pain as possible for state residents and government employees. And he is doing this so that the Legislature will bend to his will and raise income taxes, launching Minnesota into the stratosphere of high income taxes.

There are certain principles worth fighting for. Preserving a sound economic future for our state is one of those things.

Maybe it’s the fatigue of waging an under-the-radar campaign for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination for two years, but outgoing Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty sounds like he may be second guessing opting for higher office.  Telling a Duluth newspaper that he regretted not running for a third term now that Republicans are poised to run the state legislature, Pawlenty wouldn’t be saying that if his sights were focused exclusively on running for president.

I heard Pawlenty speak at this year’s CPAC, and he seems like one of the best people to run for president in awhile.  But with the 2012 campaign about to kick into gear over the next three months, this statement of public reluctance is not what I would want to hear as a donor or staff member.