Health care providers sound alarm about HCMC’s solvency

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Health care workers warned Wednesday that time is running out for state lawmakers to save Hennepin Healthcare’s Hennepin County Medical Center in downtown Minneapolis — and that the impacts could be felt statewide.
Workers with Hennepin Healthcare and the Minnesota Nurses Association said at a news conference that without action from the Legislature this session, there is talk of HCMC — one of the busiest safety-net hospitals and Level 1 trauma centers in the state — beginning closure plans as early as June.
The closest safety-net hospitals to HCMC are North Memorial in Robbinsdale or Regions in St. Paul, but Jeremy Olson-Ehlert, a registered nurse at HCMC and MNA second vice president, said the impacts would be felt statewide — and potentially regionally — given HCMC has accepted patients from the Dakotas, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin.
“If HCMC is shuttered, patients will wait significantly longer in emergency departments, and hospitals across Minnesota will lose a partner that they rely on,” he said. “There is no backup plan, there is no extra capacity, and there is no other place for these patients to go, because HCMC is not just a Minneapolis hospital, it’s Minnesota’s safety net.”
Shane Hallow, president of the Hennepin County Association of Paramedics and EMTs, said HCMC is where he brings patients who have “no other options.”
“The people who will be hit the hardest are the ones who already have the fewest options. Patients who are underinsured, uninsured, or dealing with complex medical and social needs have relied on HCMC, and without it … the gaps in care will only widen,” he said.
In a Feb. 27 Senate hearing, Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley warned that the hospital will close without aid, and that HCMC could see up to $1.7 billion in losses over the next 10 years from Medicaid changes imposed last year by the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“Hennepin County cannot afford to absorb those costs, nor can we increase our property tax levy enough to even cover those costs without revenue to replace the ongoing losses. The hospital will not remain open,” she said.
Conley said HCMC is the largest Medicaid provider system in Minnesota. Hennepin officials say the losses are a combination of several factors, including the federal Medicaid reimbursement cuts, the collapse of the Ucare health insurance provider, and the end of the federal government’s pandemic-era public health emergency in 2023.
Hennepin County officials have been warning lawmakers of the potential closure since the beginning of the session in February, but Olson-Ehlert said that at this point, there still has not been substantial action.
“We’re halfway through session, and there has been no legislation put forward yet. So it’s hard to have a position (on a plan of action) when lawmakers have not proposed anything,” he said.
One option being discussed is redirecting the existing sales tax — currently serving to pay off the bonds for Target Field’s construction debt — toward HCMC. Hennepin County can’t enact the tax without legislative approval to repurpose those funds.
Lawmakers are on break now, set to return April 7 until May 18. Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said on March 26 that help for HCMC was a top budget item priority in a non-budget year for her, though other leaders have been relatively quiet on the issue so far.
Hallow, with the Hennepin County Association of Paramedics and EMTs, on Wednesday pushed for “immediate action” from local, state and federal leaders.
“We are calling on all policymakers to introduce bills as they come back from this legislative break, hold the hearings and get the work done, because patients cannot wait, and neither should we,” he said.