Early Thursday morning, the House of Representatives passed the Health and Human Services Omnibus Bill. Last week, the Senate passed their Health and Human Services bill. The next steps will be as follows:

• House and Senate will appoint 3-5 legislators to serve on the Health and Human Services Conference Committee.
• This conference committee will meet to work out the differences in each bill (which are numerous) and come up with a conference committee report.
• The conference committee report will go back to the House and the Senate, for one final vote on the conference committee report.
• After the conference committee report passes the House and the Senate, it will then go to the governor for his signature or veto.

Many Capitol observers believe or suggest that the governor will veto the health and human services bill (along with all of the other budget bills), so “then what?” becomes the question. Legislative leaders and the governor are still saying that they will finish the session and have a balanced budget solution by May 23, 2011 – the date of mandatory adjournment. If they do not finish the budget negotiations by May 23, they will likely continue conversations and continue their attempts to reach agreement. The next deadline would be July 1, 2011, because if they do not have a budget agreement by July 1, the government would shut down. This has happened in the past. In 2005, when Governor Pawlenty and legislative leaders failed to reach agreement, the government did shut down for a little over a week.

All are hopeful we do not repeat the 2005 scenario.

Added to the mix going forward, there are still policy committees that will be holding hearings as their committee deadlines go until early May.

Rest assured, Care Providers of Minnesota staff will continue to follow closely the activities at the Capitol and advocate strongly on your behalf.

Please contact Toby Pearson at tpearson@careproviders.org, or Heidi Holste at hholste@careproviders.org if you have any questions.

Heidi Holste
952.851.2482
hholste@careproviders.org