Governor names union representatives to health care task forces

Pete Benner, former executive director of AFSCME, the state’s largest public employee union; and Judy Russell-Martin, a registered nurse and board member of the Minnesota Nurses Association, will participate in the 17-member Minnesota Health Care Reform Task Force.

The governor said they are charged with developing “an action plan for reforming how we deliver and pay for health care in Minnesota.”

Phillip Cryan, health policy specialist and organizing director of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, was named to the 15-member Health Insurance Exchange Advisory Task Force. Participants will craft an online marketplace for consumers to compare and buy health care coverage. The exchanges are a key element of the national health care legislation passed last year.

Benner is retired from AFSCME but has remained active in health care issues. Russell-Martin is a registered nurse at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis who has held numerous positions in the MNA.

Cryan’s graduate-school research on the Affordable Care Act was covered in Business Week and numerous other publications, and published as a policy brief by the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

“The health insurance exchange is a critical new piece of public infrastructure to achieve better outcomes and lower costs for individuals and small businesses and I will work tirelessly to make sure our exchange is shaped to meet the needs of working families and small businesses,” he said.

In addition to labor, the task forces draw on leaders from the community, business, health care and government.

“Minnesota historically has led the nation and the world in the quality of our health care systems and the healthiness of our residents,” Dayton said. “Minnesota also has been a leader in reforms that have expanded access to quality health care for all Minnesotans. We must continue to innovate, and there is real urgency to our mission. Health care costs are rising at unsustainable rate, undermining the budgets of Minnesota families, businesses, and our state and federal government budgets.

“The status quo is not good enough; we need to find new ways to delivering better quality health care at a lower price. The mission of this task force is to provide recommendations about how we best can accomplish this.”