Minnesota can and should refuse to create a health care exchange.  We already have over 4,000 licensed private insurance brokers in this state.  These individuals, many of them small business owners, provide professional advice to anyone shopping for health insurance in our state.  This army of insurance professionals constitute Minnesota’s private health care exchange.  We do not need the government disrupting the marketplace by effectively stepping between the consumer and these insurance professionals. 

The Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government cannot bully states into creating a health care exchange by threatening to stop existing medicare funding.  “If a state takes the money, fine, the Feds can tell the state how to run a program, but if the state refuses money, the federal government can’t penalize the state by yanking other funding.  Therefore, a state can decline to participate in Obama-care without penalty.”

Under these circumstances, and to protect the private marketplace from undue and unnecessary government involvement, our legislature should deny the Governor’s attempt to expand medicare and create a government sponsored health care exchange.   

http://whitehouse12.com/2012/06/28/chief-justice-roberts-is-a-genius/

http://bachmann.house.gov/uploadedfiles/congresslettertonga_062912.pdf