St. Louis County highlights impacts of federal budget bill

DULUTH, Minn. (Northern News Now) - As the U.S. House of Representatives now considers a major federal reconciliation bill, St. Louis County leadership is closely monitoring the legislation and have engaged with federal leaders about potential impacts on residents, county government operations and the property tax levy.

As currently written, the federal bill would shift Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) costs from the federal government to states. It would also increase administrative duties of Medicaid. Because Minnesota is one of 10 where counties administer both programs, Medicaid and SNAP, these new costs will be shifted to county governments.

“Minnesota will lose 330 million dollars with the current proposals,” said Director of Community and Human Services for St. Louis County Linnea Mirsch.

It is currently estimated that the impact of this cost shift to St. Louis County will be more than $10 million for SNAP and $6.4 million for Medicaid. This is the equivalent of a 9.5% increase in the property tax levy.

Additionally, more staff will be needed to fulfill the bill’s increased requirements for verifying participants’ eligibility for the programs.

“St. Louis County for example has 40,000 medicaid enrollees about 20% of our population with their health care covered my medicaid because of our role as the administrative burden will fall heavily on Minnesota counties,” said Mirsch.

St. Louis County staff are also responsible for determining eligibility, enrollment and renewals for 16,000 residents who receive SNAP benefits on a monthly basis.

St. Louis County EMT, Corbin Anderson, fears millions of people will lose Medicaid coverage if the bill passes.

He believes the potential added burden on property taxes could contribute to health care struggles in rural Minnesota.

“80% of our rural ambulance patients are on Medicare or Medicaid, that’s the majority of our patients and it’s so important because it helps us have those services that everybody needs,” said Anderson. “Like for these critical access hospitals, like where I live, they need that Medicare funding to stay afloat.”

President Trump has said if the bill makes it to his desk, he hopes to sign it into law on July 4th.

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