Hopkins Residents, Leaders React to Court’s Health Care Ruling

Hopkins’ political candidates, residents, businesses and organizations were quick to react to Thursday’s Supreme Court decision allowing most of the federal health care bill to stand as is.

Businesses and Nonprofits

Jamie Williams, president of Minnesota Health Coverage on Shady Oak Road, said many insurance companies had already started making some of the required changes, both because they’re popular and as a goodwill gesture.

“I guess my attitude all along has been to treat it as if it’s already law,” said Williams, who opposed the bill before it passed because he didn’t think it did enough to keep health care costs from rising. “It probably would’ve been more disruptive for it not to have been upheld.”

Williams, whose company primarily sells insurance to individuals, said the state insurance exchanges are a big question mark in his line of work. But he said a state task force was already discussing exchanges. Although many in his field worry about the exchanges cutting into businesses, he thinks there will always be a need for people like him to help customers understand the sometimes-daunting issue of insurance.  

“Not everybody is going to want to figure this out on their own, going to a website,” he said. “I know that what we do is valuable because our phones are still ringing, people are still coming through our door.”

Bethany Buchanan, co-owner of on Oak Ridge Road, said she was happy on a personal level that the court upheld the law because it’ll bring health insurance to more people. She noted, for example, that her younger employees can get health insurance through their parents.

“I think people will be healthier overall if they have insurance,” she said.

She’s also pleased with the tax credits she’ll be eligible for since Grace Homes offers health insurance to its employees and she’s hopeful about the impact of the insurance exchanges.

was also pleased with the court’s decision.

“This decision will have tangible affects of the lives of young people and their families,” a statement quoted Executive Director Leah Hebert. “Every day, we see teens and young adults in our clinics who cannot afford basic preventative health care. Choosing to go without treatments or check-ups is something that no family should ever have to do.”

( to read the organization’s full opinion column.)

State Candidates

Republican Senate District 46 candidate joked that he started getting sympathy calls shortly after he learned of the decision. But joking aside, he wasn’t happy with the court’s ruling.

“It’s put everybody in kind of a frustrating situation,” he said.

Arvidson is a libertarian-leaning Republican who thinks health care reform should be left to the states. He’s also upset that the court declared the individual mandate a tax, even though Congress originally called the payments for those who don’t have insurance a penalty.

Yet he also worries the court’s decision will lead to further gridlock on the questions that are still unanswered. He said the president and Congress just aren’t going to agree on much, especially before the election. But he said the country must move forward after the elections.

“The truth is everybody’s just dug in. They’re stubborn,” Arvidson said. “But the law is the law, and the Supreme Court is the deciding factor.”

(DFL-District 46) praised the decision because of the way the law provides greater access to insurance. He noted key items in the bill, such as the provision that lets young adults stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26 and the ban on turning people down for preexisting conditions.

“I believe that the policy is a good policy for our constituents,” he said, adding that it’s a “pro-business decision” that will save businesses money, reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.

Latz said it’s not yet clear how it’ll affect the state budget, although he said he expects the impact to be minor since Minnesota already has a robust system to care for its residents.

Still, he expects a debate next year as legislators discuss whether Minnesota should run its own health insurance exchange.

“That’ll be a battle. I fully expect that’ll be a political battle at the state Capitol,” he said.

(DFL-District 46B) said both sides of the political spectrum got a little something from the ruling. Progressives saw the law upheld—including its central tenet, the individual mandate. Conservatives saw meaningful limits placed on the Commerce Clause, which grants the federal government power to regulate business across state lines.

“The benefits of the law survive,” he said. “Of course, the burdens survive as well. In the end, the Court basically decided that the debate about the ACA (Affordable Care Act) is one that belongs in the legislative and political arenas, not in the courts.”

Federal Candidates

, a candidate to represent the 5th District in the U.S. House, called the ruling “complicated and nuanced” one whose implications won’t be clear for some time.

He also accepted the court’s decision and praised Chief Justice John Roberts as someone who can independently interpret the law.    

Still, he said Americans were let down by a decision that “ram(s) a tax down the throats of Americans for simply breathing.

“The ruling that the Affordable Care Act is a tax is damaging to personal choice because it will open the floodgates to a plethora of new taxes and new laws,” he wrote in . “We used to aspire to having more freedom and more liberty. Now we have a ruling class in this country that believes it is their sworn duty to protect us from the decisions we make for ourselves.”

Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison applauded the court’s decision in a joint statement made with Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ)—who, like Ellison, is co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC).

The statement called the ruling “a significant victory for the American people” that came after a two-year legal battle.

“The Affordable Care Act will now take its rightful place with Social Security and Medicare as powerful examples of what we can do together to improve the lives of every American,” it stated.

However, the CPC co-chairs predicted more health care battles ahead.

“We have made an important step forward toward our goal of affordable universal coverage,” the release stated. “Now we need to be vigilant to implement the law so that American families have the health care they need and deserve.”

(Hopkins Patch will update this article with more reactions throughout the day.)

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