The Banana Republic of Minnesota: Now It Can Be Told

In a late-summer series of posts, I described how the Minnesota arm of Obamacare, MNsure, was going to distribute taxpayer-funded grants for “outreach” to loyal Democrat and liberal interests.  In a twist only Nancy Pelosi would appreciate, MNsure would only reveal the identity of grantees and the dollar amounts involved once the checks went out.

Now it can be told.  Today, MNsure announced the grantees and the dollars.

As far as the local media were concerned, the big controversy surrounding the MNsure outreach grants involved the passing over of all African-American community groups who applied.  In the end, MNsure found additional taxpayer money for these groups.

In the grants announced today, MNsure confirmed that two abortion providers received taxpayer funds—Planned Parenthood and the Women’s Health Center of Duluth–receiving $150,333 and $21,385, respectively.  As I pointed out in Part 1 of this series, Planned Parenthood has been a reliable contributor to Democrat candidates and causes, spending more than $160,000 in the 2012 election.  In other words, MNsure rebated back to Planned Parenthood nearly all of its 2012 political contributions.

In Part 2 of this series, I noted that one grantee, Small Business Minnesota, is run by a Democrat candidate for the state House of Representatives.  Audrey Britton’s group received a total of $10,497 from Federal taxpayers via MNsure.

In Part 3 of this series, I took up the curious case of Health Access MN, a for-profit company founded just days before the MNsure grant application deadline.  The company turned out to be an umbrella for a broad coalition of groups.  Fronted by a former Dayton appointee, Maureen O'Connell, the coalition will receive a total of $326,606 from Federal taxpayers.  Prominent on the list of Health Access coalition members is the labor union SEIU.  As I documented the other day, SEIU spent about $2 million supporting Minnesota Democrats in the 2012 election.

MNsure has come under considerable criticism for managing to attract only 400 new customers in its health care insurance exchange during the first two weeks of operation.  But in transferring taxpayer money to Democrat and liberal interest groups?  Mission Accomplished!