ST. PAUL, Minn. – Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill Friday sending an additional $300 million to the state’s struggling nursing homes.
It was the lynchpin of an end-of-session deal on a $2.6 billion infrastructure package, the largest in state history.
Senate Republicans agreed to vote for a bonding bill in exchange for Democrats directing more money to nursing homes.
Senate Republican Minority Leader Mark Johnson of East Grand Forks said they knew Democrats would not agree to larger tax cuts, and so they dropped a lot of their tax and surplus demands and asked if they can at least fix nursing homes.
Walz has also signed scaled-back legislation that requires hospitals to develop written action plans to address workplace safety, but does not establish committees, which would have included nurses, to set staffing levels at Minnesota hospitals.
“Today, my heart breaks for the patients in Minnesota. Because of the power and influence of corporate healthcare executives, that bill has died.,” Minnesota Nurses Association union President Mary Turner said Monday.
Mayo Clinic had threatened to redirect billions of dollars in projects to other states unless lawmakers exempted them from the “hospital committee” requirement. Other Minnesota hospitals then demanded the same, and lawmakers deleted the provision from the bill which then passed both the House and Senate.
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