Republicans’ health and human services budget that the Minnesota Senate votes on later today (Tues) trims spending growth, but they say is still a 1.6-billion-dollar increase. Ham Lake Republican Michelle Benson says H-H-S spending is consuming the state budget. “We can’t even get enough PCA [personal care attendant] hours for people who are in their bed 10 hours a day,” she says. “They can’t go to the bathroom by themselves and we can’t get enough hours to those people. At some point, we have to make choices.”
Benson says they focused on children, and people who have the most need and are disabled. Democrats respond Republicans are raiding human services and the rest of the budget because they refuse to continue the health care provider tax and increase the gas tax to pay for roads and bridges.