A gubernatorial candidates' forum Monday at the Minnesota Rural Health Association in Duluth gave its moderator (me) a close-up look at how four of the five major candidates still in the running for governor distinguish themselves on one of the year's big issues.
The candidate whose positioning intrigued me most: Independence Party endorsee Tom Horner. He was one of four campaigns represented; also present were DFL endorsee Margaret Anderson Kelliher, DFLer Mark Dayton's runningmate Yvonne Prettner-Solon (a Duluth state senator) and Rep. Matt Dean, representing GOP endorsee Tom Emmer. (Emmer's frequent absence from events such as these is also becoming a griping point among the other candidates, who are itching to take him on in person.) DFLer Matt Entenza did not participate because of airplane mechanical problems, his spokesman said.
Horner is a former Republican who invokes the honorable name of his political mentor, former GOP U.S. Sen. Dave Durenberger, as he goes through his paces on health issues. But those paces put him (and Durenberger, now head of the National Center for Health Policy at the University of St. Thomas) in DFL territory more often than not -- to the evident delight of the GOP spin machine, which wants to cast Horner as too liberal to warrant Republican voters' consideration.
The IP candidate joined the two DFLers in vowing to replace General Assistance Medical Care, the state's own health care program for childless impoverished adults, with Medicaid, a 50-50 state and federally funded program. The option to do so was extended to Minnesota as part of the new federal health reform law.; it would bring an estimated $1.4 billion to Minnesota health care providers in the next three years. Dean said Emmer will do no such thing, arguing that future federal funding is too uncertain and federal rules are too cumbersome. (If the large federal deficit makes it unwise to accept federal money, as the Republicans say, perhaps the state should start refusing other federal outlays -- and let Minnesota's share of, say, highway and transit dollars or agricultural subsidies go to other states.)
But when the candidates were asked about a proposal to enroll all Minnesotans in a state-orchestrated "single payer" health insurance program, Horner parted company with Kelliher and Prettner-Solon. While Kelliher and Prettner-Solon voiced interest in moving in that direction by 2017, Horner disagreed, arguing that it would lead to a needless and probably fruitless political fight. "I'd rather spend political capital moving health reform forward. We do need to expand access (to health insurance) in Minnesota, but we ought to do it by building on the programs that are working," he said.
Horner disagrees with DFLers on tax policy too. He isn't enamored of raising income taxes paid by upper-income earners, as Dayton and Kelliher would. But that distinction and the one he made on health care policy in Duluth are easily lost when compared with the larger policy divide that separates Horner and Emmer. If Horner wants to be perceived as the middle-way candidate, his campaign will need to emphasize his disagreements the DFLers.
