Oral Testimony in Opposition to Sections 1 and 3 of H.F. 10

Chair Backer and Members of the Committee:

I am Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy voice of the Catholic Church in Minnesota. I am also here on behalf of the Catholic Health Association, a statewide network of Catholic hospitals, regional medical centers and long-term care providers.

The two organizations are opposed to the elimination of MinnesotaCare access for undocumented immigrants. Please strip that provision of the bill, or vote no altogether. At the very least, MinnesotaCare access for undocumented children should be preserved.

My predecessor, Monsignor James Habiger, played a key role in the enactment of MinnesotaCare, to give lower income Minnesotans access to affordable health insurance. Those who do not qualify for Medicaid, but are still in danger of falling into poverty, still need affordable care.

We are called to stewards of the gift of life, and access to healthcare via health insurance is necessary to properly steward the life that God has so generously gives us. It’s essential for the protection of basic human dignity and flourishing.

Unless pregnant, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for Medicaid, and cannot access the ACA’s insurance marketplace. So, unless the immigrant has the means for very expensive commercial insurance, MinnesotaCare is really the only option for them.

Because immigrants have a right to treatment, they can access emergency services, which ends up being extremely costly and raising the cost of healthcare for everyone. It’s for those reasons that many healthcare provider organizations supported the immigrant inclusion act in 2023.

Refusing to provide access to health insurance simply because of one’s legal status is a simplistic and blunt approach to a more complex problem. Our immigration system is broken and needs to be fixed at the federal level. Until then, as Minnesotans we can take steps to ensure the basic dignity and needs of our immigrant brothers and sisters, such as offering the opportunity to purchase health insurance.

Undocumented immigrants are in the United States for a variety of reasons, which include, among other things, the desire by businesses for cheap labor, Americans’ appetite for narcotics and the cartels and gangs that desire feeds, American interference in Latin American politics, and, let it be said, the desire to re-align political demographics. We welcome immigrants when convenient, and also punish them when doing so is advantageous. They are, as Pope Francis said, pawns on the chessboard of humanity. Minnesota’s long-term budget numbers are cloudy and there are not endless resources.

There is nothing wrong with prioritizing the needs of citizens first. But we still need to remember that we do owe, in justice, for some of the reasons I’ve already mentioned, respect for the basic needs of all people, including the stranger in our midst. Because our legal status is secondary to our fundamental identity as children of the one father, and thus brothers and sisters.

Let’s think creatively how we can manage budgets in a truly just way, focusing on needs before amenities. Let’s prioritize direct services and supports to those in need versus indirect services facilitated by third party vendors no real metrics for success.

And maybe with MinnesotaCare we can think differently about what is real healthcare and what is not, such as the elimination of the shameful coverage for elective abortions. Or re-examining current premium formulas and particular exemptions from paying premiums.

People are not entitled to free health insurance.

Now, don’t hear what I am not saying. I am not advocating for an increase in price for MinnesotaCare. But rather than excluding a whole class of people from eligibility we should consider how we can make the program work better for those who use it, those who would like to, and the taxpayer. That’s how we make politics a vehicle for the common good, and not just work that privileges favored groups and disadvantages others.

Thank you for your consideration.