Unions win fight for health care in northwest Minn.

Imagine without warning your health care clinic increased its insurance costs and you would lose your trusted doctors and care team? That’s the predicament Region 15 members recently found themselves in.   

Essentia Care System in the northwest region declined to reach a deal with the State Employee Group Insurance Program (SEGIP) to keep the cost at level 2 for 2025. This means the cost level would move from cost level 2 to cost level 3 next year at the region’s Essentia clinics for state employees enrolled in SEGIP. A change in tier can cost families thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses.  

“I have a teenage son and as a single mom, the health care plan is really important to me. I don’t know if I could afford the higher costs. I was having a hard time trying to figure out what I would do – I really like my care team. Could I buy a supplemental policy outside of the State of Minnesota? I was really stressing out,” said Amanda Stegmaier, an information technologist at Minnesota State Moorhead. She also serves as Local 1502’s membership secretary.  

“If our health care would have gone to a level 3, it would have made a state job less appealing,” she added.  

When Stegmaier heard about the unexpected insurance increase, she contacted MAPE and sent an email to colleagues to alert them to the price hike and urged them to contact their clinics about the cost increases. Since state employee unions negotiate health insurance as a coalition, the group agreed to organize together. MAPE, AFSCME, MSUAASF and IFO all had members in the area, and advocated for members to contact Essentia health care systems about the cost increases.      

Essentia Health recently came to an agreement with the State of Minnesota and will be a cost level 2 on March 1, 2025; employees will have to pay level 3 costs for January and February next year.  Both Blue Cross Blue Shield and Health Partners insurance companies have agreed to the change.  

“All the unions working together helped a lot because it included more voices. It showed what good can happen when labor and SEGIP work together as the coalition they were meant to be,” Stegmaier said.