DFL Gov. Mark Dayton Tuesday teed off on the Republican House plan for health care spending as an unrealistic fantasy.

"It's just Fantasy Island," Dayton said.

At issue, a provision in the House health and human services budget that assumes state savings of $300 million based on the federal government lifting all sorts of federal Medicaid rules for Minnesota.

Republican lawmakers have been unable to get a formal judgment of how much that provision would save from state officials and so they have given their "best estimate" on how much it would save.

"We should easily be able to save that much just by taking over from the feds," said House Health and Human Services Finance Committee Chairman Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, on Monday. He said if the state can't get a "global Medicaid waiver" it could cut rates to health care providers to save money.

But Dayton said it is not just simple.

"If you start making up these assumptions, where is no basis in reality to them it is a convenient gimmick to obscure the real consequences of some of these proposed cuts on real people's lives," Dayton said. "These are about people...So to make up a number of $300 million from global waiver that's never been discussed with me by anyone and there is no evidence that any other state has been able to receive such a waiver and the (federal) administration has said they don't intend to grant such a waiver and it wouldn't even be permissible, they say, under existing federal law, is just not responsible."