MinnesotaCare cuts loom

Gov. Pawlenty and state officials are trying to talk the Bush administration out of cutting $135 million over three years to the state’s MinnesotaCare program.

This afternoon the governor released a statement on a meeting with the Department of Health and Human Service’s secretary, Michael Leavitt.

“In our meeting today with Secretary Leavitt, we expressed our goal to maintain federal funding for the 18,000 Minnesotans who would be put at risk by the federal government’s proposal. The meeting was constructive and HHS has agreed to consider our request to maintain this critical federal funding and address numerous other outstanding issues between Minnesota and HHS. The Secretary and I will be speaking again regarding these matters in the coming days.

An estimated 18,000 low-income adults would lose their health insurance coverage. Most of them are parents of children who are covered.