Minnesota has the third lowest number of residents lacking health insurance coverage, according to a survey by Gallup. The state ranks below Massachusetts and Vermont, two New England states that have instituted universal health care insurance programs. According to the survey, 9.4 percent of Minnesotans lack health insurance.

Massachusetts topped the list of states with the lowest number of uninsured at 5.3 percent. In 2006, the state instituted a mandate requiring residents to carry health insurance. Vermont has the second lowest uninsured rate at 9.2 percent. Vermont recently enacted the nation’s first single-payer health care system.

Rounding out the top 10 were Connecticut, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware.

Despite the strong showing in the state-based rankings, Minnesota’s rate of uninsured has climbed over the last few years from 8.7 percent in 2009.

Minnesota also placed third in 2010 and 2009, according to Gallup. The Midwest and Northeast have historically had low uninsured rates.

The bottom ten were all southern states, except for California and Alaska. Texas had the highest percent of uninsured with 27.4 percent followed by Mississippi, Alaska, Florida, Oklahoma, California, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina and Georgia. Texas has consistently led the nation in having the highest percentage of its population without health insurance in the Gallup survey.

Rep. Tim Walz is being targeted by the National Republican Congressional Committee with a television ad critical of his vote for health care reform. The move comes after a series of robocalls by the NRCC. Walz is in his third term in Minnesota’s First Congressional District and has only one announced challenger, Randy Demmer. Demmer lost to Walz in 2010.

“There’s a cloud over our economy,” the narrator says over the backdrop of a thunderstorm. “Tim Walz’s government takeover of health care. Fear and uncertainty prevent new hiring. Steep fines and new taxes on families and businesses. Half a trillion dollars – money they can’t use to create jobs. Experts say Obama-Schrader will push employers to drop workers’ health insurance. With Walz and Obama…the storm will only get worse.”

According to Roll Call, the ad buy will be $10,000 over three weeks starting Tuesday on cable TV.

Last week, the NRCC hit Walz with robo calls, blaming Walz for the nation’s credit downgrade:

“Tim Walz and his fellow Democrats’ addiction to big government spending has led to a downgrade of America’s credit rating and a dramatic loss in the global markets that could force you to pay more for everyday expenses. While Tim Walz keeps standing in the way of real fiscal reform, middle-class families in Minnesota could now see a loss in retirement savings while mortgage rates, car payments and student loans could become even more expensive.”

Walz has been viewed as vulnerable by Republican since he won the seat in an upset against Republican Gil Gutknecht in 2006. He beat Gutknecht by 6 percent that year, by 30 percent against Brian Davis in 2008 and by 5 percent against Demmer in 2008.

Demmer registered his 2012 campaign against Walz in Febraury and the campaign has a debt of $93,000. Walz had $400,000 on hand at the end of June.

The ad wars in the 8th Congressional District continued this weekend with the announcement that Americans United for Change plans to spend “five figures” on a television ad campaign targeting four members of the House who voted for Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. The ad buy targets Rep. Chip Cravaack for backing the measure, which includes drastic changes to Medicare through a voucher system for private insurance. Cravaack is also being targeted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, but he’s got defenders: The conservative 60 Plus Association has bought ads of its own.

“If Republicans have their way, there would be no more guaranteed Medicare benefits for America’s seniors, only a guarantee of paying more and more out of pocket for less care after being left to the mercy to the private insurance industry,” said AUC executive director Tom McMahon in a statement. “There would only be a guarantee that millions of Americans would lose their jobs – only a guarantee that America’s poor and disabled will live sicker and die younger while millionaires get another tax break they don’t need and the nation cannot afford.”

He added, “This is not a path to prosperity, only a path to bankrupting seniors so Paris Hilton and BP can have another tax break. And there’s nothing courageous about that.”

In addition to Cravaack, the ad buy targets Rep. Steve King of Iowa, as well as Wisconsin Reps. Sean Duffy and Paul Ryan. Here’s the ad targeting Cravaack:

The DCCC spent several hundred dollars in the 8th to target Cravaack last week for his vote to “end Medicare.” In response, the conservative 60 Plus Association is launching $65,000 worth of radio ads thanking Cravaack for “protecting Medicare.“

Republicans in the Minnesota House are pushing legislation that would ban the Affordable Care Act from being implemented in the state under the grounds that it violates the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The bill calls the law “unconstitutional,” declares it “void” in Minnesota and directs all state agencies to halt implementation of any aspect of health care reform.

“The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), enacted by the federal government, is inconsistent with the powers reserved under the ninth and tenth amendments, is an encroachment upon those reserved powers, and is an exercise of authority not delegated to Congress,” HF1351 states.

The authors point to a decision by a conservative Florida judge as justification for the Minnesota Legislature to rule health care reform unconstitutional.

The bill says, “The legislature of the state of Minnesota, on behalf of the citizens of this state and to secure the blessings of liberty, hereby asserts its legitimate authority to interpose between its citizens and the federal government, when it has exceeded its constitutional authority and declares that the state shall not participate in PPACA, which is void and of no effect.”

If the bill became law, it would prevent all employees of the state of Minnesota from implementing any aspect of the Affordable Care Act and would provide citizens the option to sue if any employees did.

The legislation was introduced by Reps. Chris Swedzinski of Ghent, Kurt Daudt of Crown, Steve Gottwalt of St. Cloud, Doug Wardlow of Eagan, King Banaian of St. Cloud, David Hancock of Bemidji, Bruce Vogel of Willmar, Paul Torkelson of Nelson Township, and Glenn Gruenhagen of Glencoe.

Much of the text of the bill appears to be lifted from a similar one passed in the Idaho House in February.

House Republicans passed a bill on Thursday that calls for a budget bill containing $61 billion in cuts to become law if the Senate does not pass a spending plan by Wednesday. Bachmann, along with all but 15 Republicans, voted for the bill that would “deem” the budget bill into law, also known as a “self-executing rule.” One year ago, Bachmann called a similar bill “violence to the Constitution” and suggested impeachment if Democrats “deemed and passed” health care reform into law.

The move was not unanimous among Republicans. Libertarians such as Rep. Ron Paul of Texas voted against it, as did fellow Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, who said the bill “violates my conscious and the Constitution, and I cannot vote for it.”

All of Minnesota’s Republican members of Congress voted for the self-executing rule.

On Sean Hannity’s Fox show last year, Bachmann said of the deem-and-pass strategy and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “That should laugh her out of the House and there should be people that are calling for impeachment off of something like this. That’s how bad this is. I mean, trust me, Dennis Hastert never could have gotten away with this.”

In fact, Bachmann took to numerous media outlets to oppose the strategy, which Democrats soon dropped in favor of an up or down vote. The measure at the time was being proposed by New York Rep. Louise Slaughter.

“They use the Slaughter rule in the House, something that hasn’t been done before,” Bachmann told NewsMax’s Ronald Kessler.

And on Fox’s Red Eye, Bachmann told the host, “It does great violence to the Constitution. We call it the ‘slaughter the House rule.’ It’s never been done before in the history of the Congress.”

Bachmann was rebuked by fact-checkers when she made the claim that deem and pass was never used before, and she quickly backtracked.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, criticized Bachmann on the House floor on Thursday over the bill.

“But they pretend in their language what is clearly contrary to the Constitution. Because they say, if it doesn’t pass, the provisions of H.R. 1, the bill they’ve sent to the Senate, passed by the house on February 19, 2011, are hereby enacted into law. In other words, we’re going to deem it passed,” he said. “Michelle Bachmann, apparently may be a candidate for president said this, that deem and pass ‘ignored the constitution and warranted the impeachment of the House Speaker… there should be people that are calling for impeachment off of something like this.’”

A ban on somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a technique used in some forms of stem cell research, passed the House and Senate floors on Tuesday evening in a pair of higher education budget bills. The bills would prohibit state or federal funding from going toward SCNT stem cell research. The two bills are headed to conference committee, where the two bodies will hash out the parts of the bills that differ. Gov. Mark Dayton indicated in a letter to legislators that he would veto a bill that contained the stem cell bans, citing them as policy issues that don’t belong in budget bills.

In the House, Rep, King Banaian (R-St. Cloud) moved to amend the higher education bill with language banning SCNT, calling it “human cloning.”

“This is simply concerned with the funding of research into this. It is not an outright ban,” he said on the floor. “It does not ban a state institution doing it if it was able to find private funding to do so.”

In the Senate, the higher education bill was similarly amended in committee by Sen. Michelle Fischbach (R-Paynesville), whose husband, Scott Fischbach is executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, which has lobbied for the ban.

DFLers on the Senate floor objected to the provision saying it would prevent important therapeutic research from happening in Minnesota.

“The effect of that would be very significant for our economy and jobs, and very significant for the potential to control or cure very sign diseases that affect all of our families,” said Sen. Ron Latz (DFL-St. Louis Park).

He said proponents of the bill weren’t being completely honest about its true motivations.

“It’s the agenda of [Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life] and the pro-life movement to move the line of where human conception begins,” said Latz. “I respect those who sincerely hold those beliefs, but we ought to be having it on terms that we understand that it’s not hiding behind scientific language when that’s not really what it’s doing.”

DFLers moved to amend the bill to have it ban the creation of human clones and to allow for therapeutic research.

Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville) said, “If you want to ban cloning but don’t want to stop the medical research, vote for the amendment, but don’t be pretending you want to do it because you want to ban human cloning.”

Those amendments were defeated.

Gov. Dayton wrote Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch on Tuesday stating that like his predecessor, Republican Tim Pawlenty, he would likely send back bills that contained “extraneous policy” proposals that didn’t relate to the budget.

And Dayton’s commissioner of higher education, Sheila Wright, specifically called out the stem cell ban in a letter to Republican leadership.

“Language regarding Human Cloning is moving in a separate bill and should continue to do so,” wrote Wright. “Any policy provisions not tied to the budget should be removed so we can focus on the budget.”

Senate Republicans are working to defund family planning programs in Minnesota and prevent the state from accepting federal family planning dollars. The health and human services budget bill slashes money for programs that provide services to families either seeking to become pregnant or to prevent becoming pregnant. Those funds cannot be used to perform abortions or provide referrals to abortion services. The move mirrors a push by Republicans at the federal level to defund Planned Parenthood. Along with county public health departments, Planned Parenthood clinics in Minnesota are a major beneficiary of family planning funds.

The Health and Human Services Omnibus bill would repeal statute 145.925, which is the state’s family planning grant program. Those grants support county health departments, Planned Parenthood clinics and other community clinic throughout the state.

The omnibus bill not only stops funding for the state family planning grant program but also prohibits the state from accepting federal grants for family planning.

“The state shall not appropriate state funds or accept federal funds for family planning special projects or family planning services,” the omnibus bill states.

According to the Minnesota Department of Health, the Family Planning Special Projects Grants, one of the programs proposed for elimination, provided services to more than 40,000 people from July 2008 to June 2009. Counseling services were provided to 28,728 people, and 24,096 Minnesotans received exams, prescriptions and other medical services. Two-thirds of those people had income levels at the federal poverty line and 83 percent had incomes less than 200 percent of the poverty line.

The grant programs include birth control education and counseling, child-spacing counseling, screenings for breast and cervical cancer, community education events and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

The program cost about $10 million last biennium and has been in place since 1978.

Also slated for elimination is the Minnesota Family Planning Program, a Medicaid State 1115 Waiver Program Demonstration Project. The federally supported program allows low-income women to enroll in a family planning health care program that covers the cost of contraception services, voluntary sterilization services, birth control counseling and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Update: The repeal of federally supported family planning programs has been removed from the bill.

In Montana, Republicans have proposed a similar policy of eliminating family planning, and they’re doing it because they don’t want money going to Planned Parenthood. At the federal level, House Republicans have proposed elimination of family planning dollars in a move to defund Planned Parenthood.

Neither the federal government nor Minnesota allow abortion services to be paid for with family planning funds.

The health and human services omnibus bill is currently being heard in committees, and could see a vote on the Senate floor this week.

Rep. Michele Bachmann made her debut in New Hampshire with a series five appearances on Friday and Saturday as part of her “all in for 2012″ tour. At one stop, a troop of AIDS activists crashed her speech and a gaffe on U.S. history put Bachmann’s visit in the headlines.

At her speech to the New Hampshire Republican party on Saturday morning, Bachmann praised the state’s caucus process, repeated her “Hu’s your daddy?” line, called President Bush a big spender and said the Medicare will be flat broke by 2017.

She also again talked about defunding “Obamacare.”

“I don’t know why our Republican leadership hasn’t taken this up in DC,” Bachmann said of her efforts to defund health care reform. She added that she was appalled by the $105 billion she says was hidden in the health care reform bill.

“I’m insulted that I was not given this information before the vote. That’s not what our brave men and women… it’s not the kind of nation they put their lives on the line for,” she said. “This is a crime against democracy not to reveal this to the American people.”

Fact-checkers have cried foul over the statement; last week, the Washington Post gave the statement “four Pinnochios” for prizing “bombast” over facts, while Politifact called it “barely true.” And on Saturday, a Star Tribune editorial chastised Bachmann for the claim, stating that “she personally needs a refresher course on the Ten Commandments – specifically, the one that warns against bearing false witness.” The paper notes that the $105 billion was really $103.1 billion and that there’s “no basis for Bachmann’s claim that the implementation money was inserted ‘secretly.’”

Halfway through her speech, a group of college students crashed the ballroom where the speech was held shouting, “Michele Bachmann, we insist! End AIDS treatment waiting lists!”

As the group was escorted out, Bachmann said, “It’s okay; they just brought the buses in from Madison, Wisconsin.”

But it was a gaffe earlier in the speech that generated weekend chatter by political pundits. “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord,” she said, referencing Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn,” an ode to the lives lost at the start of the American Revolution in Concord, Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.

Bachmann was quick to admit the historical mistake. In a message on Facebook, she said, “So I misplaced the battles Concord and Lexington by saying they were in New Hampshire. It was my mistake, Massachusetts is where they happened. New Hampshire is where they are still proud of it!”

And not to escape without a dig at President Obama, she added in a later Facebook posting, “And by the way… That will be the last time I borrow President Obama’s tele-promoter!”

Sources close to Bachmann told CNN over the weekend that she is leaning towards a run for president in 2012.

“She is leaning more toward doing it,” an anonymous Republican told the network. “The people she’s meeting on the ground, they love her. She is definitely more encouraged when she makes these trips.”

Conservative commentator George Will disagreed with his fellow panelists on CBS’s This Week on Sunday morning that Bachmann would be a formidable contender.

“She’s not among the serious contenders,” explained Will at the culmination of a roundtable discussion focused on Bachmann’s political ambitions. “We know who settles presidential elections, they’re independent voters. Independent voters are not inflamed, and not inflamed in the way that some of the marginal Republican candidates are.”

Here’s video of that exchange:

Following the gaffe and protest at Saturday morning’s speech, Bachmann riled up the Granite State Patriots Liberty PAC meeting later on Saturday.

“I think it’s not about being polite, I think it’s about being honest,” she said of her outspoken nature.

She also tried to tie President Obama to the TARP bailout passed and signed into law by President Bush.

“Did you ever think you’d live to see the day when your government would own the largest banks, the largest insurance company, the largest auto maker and over half the homes in the united states?” she asked. “All of that happened within 12 months of Barack Obama becoming president of the United States.”

She said the United Nations “would love to see American sovereignty diminished,” and said she’s fine with forcing a government shutdown in order to defund “Obamacare.”

“I’ve decided to draw a line in the sand. We will repeal ‘Obamacare,’” she said. “We cannot allow this to abide in the United States of America. It will change our nation forever.”

She concluded, “The nation was founded on a miracle and a miracle can happen again.”

After a heated discussion Tuesday evening, the House Health Reform Committee passed a bill along party lines that would halt implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act in Minnesota until the constitutionality of the law is considered by the U.S. Supreme Court. The committee meeting grew contentious as Republicans’ repeated use of the term “Obamacare” led Democrats to consider dubbing the eight-year Iraqi war the “Bush wars,” and DFLers trying to preserve key aspects of the act including a ban on rejecting patients — especially children — who have preexisting health conditions for coverage. Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, the bill’s author, said that voting against his bill amounted to rejecting the “Creator.”

HF468 states that state funds cannot be used to implement provisions of the Affordable Care Act until the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it constitutional. In his statement in support of the bill, Gruenhagen said, “I realize people of good will can disagree on this.”

The Glencoe Republican spoke of natural law as being derived from a creator.

“Your vote today will indicate whether you primarily hold to the belief in a creator and the absolutes rooted in natural law which are found in the Declaration of Independence and preamble to the Constitution, or you believe in sociological law, which rejects a creator and replaces the creator with judges who become our king and nobility accountable only to themselves,” he said.

Democrats on the committee objected to the way the bill was discussed and how the committee meeting was handled.

Rep. Rena Moran of St. Paul said she would prefer the committee used the proper name for the bill and not “Obamacare,” a neologism crafted by Republicans.

“It would be really nice if you would use the proper term the Affordable Care Act,” she said. “I need to hear that.”

Rep. Tina Liebling of Rochester also objected to the use of the term. “It’s offensive in the way its used, and it’s used in a very partisan way,” Liebling said.

The chair of the committee, Republican Rep. Steve Gottwalt of St. Cloud, interrupted Liebling and said major media outlets use the term, so he would allow it. “I respect people’s sensibilities, but I think there is enough common usage in society right now around this to say that either term can be used.”

Liebling responded, “Mr. Chair, I think I had the floor. I’m sorry, but it’s quite unusual to be interrupted in the middle of a statement. I was about to end my statement by simply saying that from now on I think I will now refer to the Iraqi war as ‘the Bush war’ and say that over and over.”

“Rep. Liebling you’re out of order,” Gottwalt said. “That is so off-topic.”

That exchange was similar to one in Montana last month. A Republican legislator said he would only use the term “Obamacare” when referring to the Affordable Care Act, and a Democrat objected by saying, “We don’t call the Iraqi war ‘Bush’s War,’ and by that same reasoning, I don’t think it’s appropriate to call this ‘Obamacare.’”

Later in the meeting, Liebling made it clear she wasn’t finished with that line.

She mentioned that many testifiers noted the cost of the Affordable Care Act. “The Iraq war has caused the state of Minnesota $18 billion,” she said, prompting Gottwalt to declare her out of order.

“Rep. Liebling, I’m asking you to cease,” he said.

Liebling shot back, “I resent being censored. I have First Amendment Rights, and I have an election certificate. I think it’s entirely on topic,” she said, noting that many testifiers and committee members have cited the federal deficit in criticizing the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats had offered a series of amendments to Gruenhagen’s bill to retain certain parts of the Affordable Care Act, including allowing children under age 26 to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans, maintaining the act’s ban on dropping coverage for children who have preexisting medical conditions and maintaining tax breaks for small businesses.

Each amendment failed along party lines, and Gruenhagen’s bill passed the committee.

Before it passed, however, one committee member asked testifier Kim Crockett of the Minnesota Free Market Institute what would happen if the Supreme Court never ruled on the Affordable Care Act.

DFL Rep. Patti Fritz asked, “Would that bar Minnesota from forever participating in the Affordable Care Act?”

“You are right, they could decline to hear the case, though it’s unlikely,” she said. “Minnesota would be left with a legal quandary.”

Minnesota legislators have introduced a bill that would create Minnesota’s first public education campaign about HIV/AIDS. New HIV infections have spiked in Minnesota over the past two years, leading public health organizations to look for ways to curb the epidemic here. SF 466 would direct the Minnesota Department of Health to develop a statewide campaign that provides information both to the general public and distinct communities.

The bill was introduced in the Senate late last week by Sen. Scott Dibble of Minneapolis, Sen. John Marty of Roseville and Sen. Sandy Pappas of St. Paul.

Amy Brugh, public policy director for the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP), said a public health campaign around HIV is needed in Minnesota. “We feel like this legislation is so important,” she said. MAP runs the AIDSLine, which Brugh calls a “one-stop shop” for statewide information about HIV/AIDS. The phone service — coupled with new web-based chat feature — takes thousands of calls each year.

“In conversations with people there’s a lot of misinformation,” Brugh said. “For example, we get a lot of calls about saliva being a risk. It’s not.”

She said people around the state call the AIDSLine thinking they “have frequent HIV risk when there’s no risk.”

But a bigger concern for MAP is that Minnesotans might underestimate their risk for HIV infection. “We are concerned that some people don’t understand that having unprotected sex is risky.”

The latest data from the department of health shows a 25 percent increase in HIV infections in 2009 (data for 2010 is expected to be released this spring). That increase means the number of people who contracted HIV is at a 17-year high, on par with the early 1990s. And a significant number of those new HIV infections were among people under age 25.

Since the epidemic’s beginning in the early 1980s, Minnesota has never instituted a statewide public health campaign.

Brugh noted that such a campaign would help destigmatize HIV.

“We need to reduce stigma surrounding people living with HIV in Minnesota,” she said. “Stigma drives the epidemic as do homophobia and racism.”

Though timely, because of the budget deficit and the current makeup of the Minnesota Legislature, Brugh said the bill is not likely to pass, let alone be heard in committee. But she did say that the legislature has enacted similar programs in the past.

“Current statute funds a public education campaign on fetal alcohol disorder as well as other efforts. There is precedent for public health campaigns in the state,” she said.

And arming Minnesotans with information about HIV could save the state millions of dollars in the long run. Research has suggested that the costs of HIV infection to the health care system in 2006 were $2,100 a month or $618,000 over the lifetime for individuals living with HIV. At times, those costs are born by state-subsidized health programs.

“Investing in HIV infection is a fraction of the costs of treating HIV infection,” said Brugh.