“I’m trying to avoid a panic attack,” Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, said Wednesday. [...]  ”Where will low-income people go if we toss them off health insurance programs?” she said. “They’ll go to emergency rooms, jails, prisons and mental health treatment centers — at far greater cost.” [...]

[Y]our timing is terrible,”[Rep. Tom Huntley, DFL-Duluth] told Human Services Commissioner Cal Ludeman Tuesday. “You want to cut off health benefits for thousands of people just when the unemployment rate is going to hit 9 or 10 percent, and thousands more will lose their employer health insurance.” [...]

“Some parts of the governor’s budget are probably all right,’ Berglin said, “but we need a lot more creative thinking to avoid an even worse economic disaster.” [...]

“Everybody is going to be hurt somewhat” when the state finally hammers out a budget for 2010-2011, Huntley said. “This deficit is a disaster, and we can’t tax our way out of it. We have to make cuts — even in health and human services.”

And so it begins…the opening salvos in one of the most contentious debates in Minnesota’s 2009 legislative session — those involving the cost of healthcare for those who don’t either have it or are on the verge of losing it amidst enormous budget cuts, with a $5B deficit at the root of the problem. | LINK

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