Lawmakers: For-Profit Insurers Could Raid Minnesota Reserves

ST. PAUL (AP) — Attorney General Keith Ellison has called on lawmakers to reverse a 2017 law that repealed Minnesota's ban on for-profit health insurance companies.

The law takes effect July 1, but language to undo it is part of a broad health and human services bill that will be debated on the House floor Wednesday.

Ellison and lawmakers who held a news conference Tuesday said that unless the Legislature acts, for-profit companies could pocket billions of dollars in assets now held in reserve by the state's nonprofit health plans. They say the money should be used for health care instead.

Democratic Rep. Tina Liebling says the repeal of the ban on for-profit companies from selling health insurance in Minnesota was quietly slipped into another bill in 2017, and its origin remains a mystery.