Hamline Professor David Schultz
Republican state lawmakers and legislative candidates are holding what they call “emergency” town hall meetings tonight in Bemidji, Owatonna and Red Wing to hear about skyrocketing health insurance rates. Democratic Governor Mark Dayton is pushing for a special session before the election to address the problem, but Hamline University analyst Dave Schultz puts the chances at “just about zero.” Schultz says, “For the Republicans, they have no real incentive to have a special session before the election, because they want to use this as an issue against the Democrats.”
Schultz says after the election is over, lawmakers will probably decide to wait until the regular session in January to address the problem of rising health insurance premiums. He predicts Republicans will make Democrats do the fix by themselves and, if something goes wrong, use it against them in 2018.
More in Bill Werner’s interview with Schultz: