Star Tribune
Minnesota lawmakers unveil compromise health budget, delay on MinnesotaCare expansion
An expansion of the MinnesotaCare health plan and other health reforms were delayed or shelved Friday night as lawmakers announced compromises on a health budget bill that would increase state spending by $1.7 billion over the next two years.
Lawmakers on a conference committee recommended that Minnesota spend next year studying the economic value of expanding eligibility to the public health plan beyond low-income individuals. If the results were favorable, then the expansion and MinnesotaCare public option would take place in 2025.
They also decided to first study whether the state could reign in drug costs by taking direct control over the pharmacy benefits for public health plans.
Sen. Melissa Wiklund, DFL-Bloomington, said tough decisions had to be made to resolve differences between the House and Senate budget bills – with only a few days left in the legislative session. The Senate had recommended a rebasing that would boost payment rates by the state’s public health programs to Minnesota’s financially struggling hospitals. But that was scrapped in the final version.
“It was just a matter of trying to balance all of the things we were trying to include in the bill,” she said.
The compromise proposal also canceled plans to create a health care affordability board, which would set spending growth rates for Minnesota hospitals and possibly fine those that exceeded those rates. The creation of the board was one of two legislative proposals that prompted Mayo Clinic to threaten to move a billion-dollar expansion project to another state.
Mayo got its way on both. All of its hospitals were exempted from separate legislation that would require hospitals to set up committees of administrators, nurses and other caregivers to establish nurse staffing levels.
The affordability board could have been problematic for Mayo, which tends to be a higher-cost provider than others in Minnesota. The compromise health budget will still create a division of health care affordability within the Minnesota Department of Health to monitor health care spending and cost-saving solutions.
The compromise included funding to support long COVID survivors and study the impact of the mysterious condition. Some initiatives to boost mental health and substance abuse treatment programs were funded while others were cut or received less money.
Payment rates for abortion and reproductive health services were boosted by 20% under the compromise bill, which will require approval by the House and Senate before it is presented to Gov. Tim Walz.
The session hasn’t been great for hospitals not named Mayo. While nurses and their union leaders argued that hospital nurse staffing committees will reduce worker burnout and improve patient care, hospital leaders worried that they will have to close units or deny patients when they don’t have the staffing available to meet the committee’s requirements.
Hospitals needed a rebasing of the payment rates by which state health plans pay for care, said Joe Schindler, a finance vice president for the Minnesota Hospital Association. The current methodology results in payments that are about 28% below cost.
“Finances at hospitals and health systems are at historically low levels,” he said.
Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, lamented the lack of support for hospitals during the conference committee.
“It seems like that is something we really should do … to keep them squared away,” he said.
The committee meeting ended late Friday without a vote, but Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, a key author of the health budget, said the compromise will be presented without any more changes to the House and Senate.
“This is not open for negotiation any further,” she said.
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
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