UnitedHealth Group is suing the Minnesota Department of Human Services over an expansive omnibus bill that the DFL-controlled legislature passed in the final moments of the legislative session this spring.
The Minnesota-based health insurance titan filed a complaint Friday, Aug. 2 in state district court. It also names Attorney General Keith Ellison as a defendant. It has tapped Minneapolis-based law firm Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath to serve as its legal counsel.
In the complaint UnitedHealth Group Inc. alleges that the legislature’s May 19 passage of HF5247—which constituted 1,400 pages of wide-ranging provisions across several areas of government policy and expenditures—violates the “Single Subject Clause” of the Minnesota Constitution.
UnitedHealth Group coins the legislation the “Jumbo Omnibus” and says in the complaint that among one of bill’s hundreds of provisions is a new law that harms how it conducts business with for-profit HMOs. It also alleges the legislation violates the constitution’s Title Clause, which states “no law shall embrace more than one subject, which shall be expressed in its title.” The title of the legislation spans six pages and covers several unrelated areas of government.
In the complaint the healthcare company asks the court to order a preliminary injunction to prevent Department of Human Services Commissioner Jodi Harpstead from “enforcing its non-renewal of UnitedHealth’s contracts with the state of Minnesota as an HMO provider on the basis of the unconstitutional HMO provision” of the legislation.
“Buried in the Jumbo Omnibus is a provision that adversely affects Plaintiffs UnitedHealth Group Incorporated … by prohibiting the Commissioner of the Department of Human Services from entering into new contracts with for-profit HMOs. UnitedHealth brings this suit to enforce the democratic protections of the Minnesota Constitution and to have the provision declared unconstitutional under the Single Subject and Title clauses and stricken from law.”
“The Jumbo Omnibus violates the Single Subject and Title Clauses of Section 17” in Article IV of the constitution, the complaint explains. “It governs everything from higher education, to traffic cameras, to Uber and Lyft driver compensation, to veterinary licensing, to power plant emissions (to name only a few of the many subjects it addresses).”
Republicans warned Walz bill was unconstitutional
Gov. Tim Walz signed the legislation five days later despite protest from Republican legislative leaders who wrote him a letter asking him to veto the bill and warned him the bill violated the state constitution and risked a lawsuit.
“The title for HF5247 alone is six full pages, including dozens of individual subjects expressed in the title. It is inconsistent with the oath you swore to uphold the Minnesota Constitution to sign this bill into law,” Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson and House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth said in a letter they wrote to Walz on May 22. “Furthermore, signing this bill would signal to Minnesotans that you explicitly endorse the outrageous and unprecedented breach of process that put the bill on your desk.”
Walz signed the legislation on May 24. Democratic legislative leaders defended the legislation, saying Republican delay tactics late in the session required them to combine dozens of individual bills into one large, unprecedented omnibus bill.
UnitedHealth alleges in the complaint that the Minnesota Legislature has “increasingly enacted policy through large omnibus bills of doubtful constitutionality, causing the courts to enforce Single Subject Clause and warn against future violations.”
Check back for updates on this developing story
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Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
