ST. PAUL — Gov. Tim Walz and leaders in Minnesota’s health care industry held a roundtable Tuesday, Sept. 23, warning that health care costs are expected to rise if enhanced tax credits aren’t extended.
Minnesota Department of Commerce Commissioner Grace Arnold said Tuesday there could be an average increase in health insurance rates for individual markets of over 16% — nearly 13% for small group markets — if Congress doesn’t vote to extend enhanced tax credits under the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire Jan. 1.
“Unsurprisingly, to most people who understand this, the chaos that has been created by House Bill One — the ‘big, beautiful (bill)’ or big ‘bait and switch’ — is causing immense chaos in the health care markets and health delivery,” Walz said. “You’re seeing it in some of the closures of hospitals, the shrinking of service lines, and you’re certainly going to see it in the insurance rates.”
CEO Libby Caulum said MNSure estimates show that if the credits are not extended before Jan. 1, up to nearly 90,000 Minnesotans will see an increase on their monthly premium bill. MNSure estimates that an average increase in monthly premiums could be $177 per month.
MNSure CEO Libby Caulum talks about rising health care costs on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, at the state Capitol in St. Paul.
Mary Murphy / Forum News Service
Cindy VanDerPol, who owns Pastures A Plenty Farm in Chippewa County, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 and underwent 33 rounds of radiation treatment. At the time of treatment, VanDerPol said she was covered by MinnesotaCare because her income was low enough.
“I had nearly $200,000 in medical bills, and thanks to MinnesotaCare, those were all covered, and it probably saved our farm,” she said. “I’m now cancer-free, but last year, our income was too high and we went without insurance, and we just saved up to pay all my medical bills.”
Cindy VanDerPol discusses her stress over rising health care costs as a farmer and breast cancer survivor on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, at the state Capitol in St. Paul.
Mary Murphy / Forum News Service
VanDerPol said rising health care costs are a huge source of stress for her family.
“The step to increase the rates is going to add a significant financial pressure facing us farmers and others who are struggling right now. This additional pressure couldn’t come at a worse time,” she said.
Department of Commerce Commissioner Grace Arnold said Tuesday that if the state had not extended the Minnesota Premium Security Plan — a reinsurance program that aims to offset high-cost claims and stabilize premiums — in 2022, 2026 premiums would have risen 25% higher than projected.
“Minnesota was preparing the best we could,” Walz said. “We had a very difficult negotiation, but were able to put in reinsurance, which is a way to backfill this, but a massive amount of taxpayer dollars in reinsurance is basically eaten up and gone because of the decisions that were made with this federal bill.”
Though President Donald Trump signed H.R. 1, a budget bill dubbed the
by supporters, into law July 4, Minnesota lawmakers have been trying to assess the bill’s potential impacts
Minnesota Senate Democrats
on Sept. 9 that will focus on assessing the impacts of the federal budget bill.
Minnesota state Rep. Robert Bierman, DFL-Apple Valley, and Sen. Alice Mann, DFL-Edina, discuss rising health care costs on Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, at the state Capitol in St. Paul.
Mary Murphy / Forum News Service
Sen. Alice Mann, DFL-Edina, who is a physician, said Tuesday that the increased rates will compound the effects of Medicaid cuts within the bill.
The Minnesota Department of Human Services estimates that as many as
could lose Medicaid coverage and the state could lose $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion in federal Medicaid funds in 2027.
“We’re pricing people out of health insurance,” Mann said. “Those clinics are going to be completely overwhelmed despite all the funding that we put into them, and we’re going to see increased wait times in the hospital ERs and in urgent cares. We’re going to see your hospitals become overcrowded again, just like we did in COVID. This is going to be an absolute disaster for our health care system.”
Mary Murphy joined Forum Communications in October 2024 as the Minnesota State Correspondent. She can be reached by email at mmurphy@forumcomm.com.
