Category Archives: news

The poorest Minnesotans – more than 20,000 people, an estimated 80 percent struggling with mental illness or chemical dependency – were the target of Governor Pawlenty’s budget cutting last year. Under his plan, they were to lose General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) coverage on March 31, leaving them without a way to pay for medical care or for desperately-needed prescriptions.

Now they will continue to be covered, thanks in large part to the two representatives who, according to the Strib’s Lori Sturdevant, worked tirelessly to engineer some kind of agreement that could pass. They are DFL Representative Erin Murphy and Republican Representative Matt Dean.

The GAMC deal will continue coverage through the 2012-2013 budget year, but the compromise looks like an awkward beast designed by a committee. Here are the sketchy, and often ugly, details, as reported by Politics in Minnesota and by Minnesota Public Radio:

• GAMC will continue through May 2010, funded with $28 million from the Health Care Access Fund.

• Provider payments (to hospitals, clinics, doctors, dentists) will be cut by about 75 percent.

• Prescription drug payments will be capped at $45 million for the remainder of the 2010-2011 biennium, and $83 million for 2012-2013.

• After May, some the state’s largest hospitals will be forced into “coordinated care organizations” and paid with block grants for providing coverage to the poor. The number of hospitals in the CCOs is not clear, but probably somewhere between 17 and 24.

• As the Pioneer Press points out, “any of Minnesota’s other 131 hospitals still must treat indigents who show up in emergency rooms.” The PiPress says they will be paid from a pool of $20 million for six months – and after that, there’s no plan.

This solution leaves a lot of questions, such as how urban or rural hospitals can continue to provide care at 25 percent of what they now receive for GAMC patients – when the current GAMC payments are already considered low. One likely, if partial, answer: they’ll charge insured patients more, in order to make up their deficit.

The cost of care provided through the “coordinated care organizations” will add $116 million to the state budget through the end of 2011, increasing the budget deficit to $1.1 billion. Pawlenty proposes to pay by cutting other health and human services programs – as if they had not already been cut to the bone and beyond.

The good news:

• There is a plan to continue medical care for the indigent.

• The governor will not be allowed to rob the Health Care Assistance Fund, which was set up to help pay for MinnesotaCare. Only $28 million will be transferred from HCAF to the general fund to pay for the new plan.

• The governor will have to drop his proposal to eliminate MinnesotaCare eligibility for all single adults making more than $8,000 per year.

The bad news:

• There’s just not enough money in the plan to pay for medical care and prescriptions.

• Already-struggling hospitals will have to deliver care for way-below-cost payments.

• The governor promises to use this as a reason to slash other health and human services programs even further.

Thailand sent soldiers into a Hmong refugee camp to force 4,000 Hmong back to Laos on Sunday, ignoring U.N. protests and letters from nine U.S. Senators, including both Senator Al Franken and Senator Amy Klobuchar. The Thai forces will first transport the Hmong refugees to a staging area and then into Laos, with plans to complete the entire operation within 24 hours.

Jamming all cell phone communications from the camp and barring reporters, the Thai government effectively stopped reporting on exactly what was happening. (BBC) Continue reading →

Snow-pocalypse, Snowmageddon, call it what you will – The Twin Cities got everything from snow to sleet to rain over the Christmas holiday. Highlights included cancellation of all Greyhound bus routes on New Year’s Eve, as well as delays and some cancellations of airline flights, snow emergencies across the metro, and record-setting snow measurements. Today – falling temps and rising winds. Snow emergency continues in Minneapolis, so watch where you park. Paul Douglas advises:

A friendly word to the wise: try to get out and push that slushy, sloppy concoction off your driveway or sidewalk (slowly, carefully – this is VERY heavy, wet snow with a high water content, what some doctors euphemistically call “heart attack snow.”) The reason? If you don’t get out there fairly soon it may become a cement-like, semi-permanent part of your yard.

For more snow, snow emergency, snow shoveling info, see What you need to know about snow in the Twin Cities.
Minnesota Lutherans have their first Hmong pastor – Nengyia Her ordained in the Minneapolis Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and installed as pastor of Luther Memorial Lutheran Church in north Minneapolis. (Star Tribune)

American Indians, First Nations in Canada, and aboriginal Australians have have been hit harder by swine flu than other populations. Possible reasons: poverty, overcrowded housing, higher incidences of asthma and diabetes, lack of access to health care. (NPR)

A Nigerian man failed to damage a Delta/Northwest flight to Detroit on Chdristmas Day  – though he tried to set off an incendiary device and apparently wanted to commit a major act of terrorism. His failed attempt succeeded in landing him in the hospital with second-degree burns to his legs, where he had taped explosive powder. He was overpowered by passengers after his failed attempt resulted in a firecracker-like popping noise and some smoke. According to the New York Times, “Although Mutallab is said to have told officials that he was directed by al-Qaida, the counterterrorism official expressed caution about that claim. ‘It may have been aspirational,’ the [federal counterterrorism] official said.”

Christmas doesn’t stop the wars. In Iraq, bombs killed 23 people on December 24, mostly Shia Muslims celebrating the holy day of Ashura (BBC). In Afghanistan, suicide bombers took eight lives in Kandahar (BBC). And the United States assisted Yemen in airstrikes targeting Al Qaida meetings (NPR), killing at least 30 people.

Paul Krugman responds to center and left objections to the Senate health care bill, with numbers showing that it will provide major relief to middle and lower-income families buying individual policies. Krugman: “Guys, this is a major program to aid lower- and lower-middle-income families. How is that not a big progressive victory?” Maybe because subsidizing private insurance coverage still means feeding the fat cat insurers?

© Georgios Kollidas - Fotolia.com

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher is raising all kinds of ethical issues with a recent fundraising effort, and across the river, Sheriff Rich Stanek’s newest initiative seems to be based on the premise that there’s no place like jail for the holidays. Continue reading →

Last week, the demonstration was on the ice of Lake Minnetonka, targeting UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley, and meeting with vehement objections from a neighbor who insisted that demonstrating outside someone’s home is just wrong, especially because “it’s f#%&ing Christmas!” The health care protests, with the support of Physicians for a National Health Program continue with bannering over area freeways. Continue reading →