Star Tribune
Insured Minnesotans’ health care cost $581 more per person last year
Rising drug costs drove a $581 per capita increase in total medical spending for Minnesotans with private insurance last year — a trend that put a strain on household incomes and is likely to push premiums higher.
That 7% increase in 2022 followed a 12% increase in 2021, according to Thursday’s annual report by MN Community Measurement. Total spending includes payments by insurers and out-of-pocket by patients.
Both numbers reflect a bounce back from 2020, when spending declined. That year, the pandemic compelled people to delay surgeries and avoid routine care at doctor’ offices. But the numbers also reflect a worsening long-term trend, because spending increased more on average over the arc of the pandemic than in prior years.
Yearly spending per privately insured patient in Minnesota rose from $5,904 in 2014 to $8,832 last year, the report showed.
Some increase is inevitable, but the trajectory suggests that clinicians aren’t preventing chronic diseases such as diabetes and then managing them cost effectively once they occur, said Julie Sonier, president of MN Community Measurement, a nonprofit that seeks to improve health care by publishing clinical data.
“There is a ton of room for improvement in both of these areas,” she said. “We shouldn’t just sit back and say, ‘Well, you know, health care costs grow 5 to 6 percent a year.’ I mean, they do, but that’s faster than the economy historically grows.”
Pharmaceutical drug costs increased 17% in 2022, when a new class of weight-loss drugs emerged.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota saw a 63% increase in spending on this class of drugs in the 12-month period ending in September. Hennepin Healthcare pulled coverage of those drugs for weight-loss purposes from its worker health plans for 2024 after spending millions more than expected on them in 2023.
The data showed increases in emergency room visits and outpatient surgeries, but declines in primary care visits and hospital admissions.
Hospitals have been reporting problems discharging patients from inpatient beds, because there are no openings for them in nursing homes or rehab centers. Sonier said the decline in admissions is probably a result of this discharge problem and the shortage of nurses and other caregivers that has reduced hospital capacity.
“What if somebody went to the emergency department and there was no bed in the hospital to which they could be admitted?” she said.
The report exposed how different clinics have widely varying prices for the same procedures. Private insurers paid some medical groups $348 for common chest X-rays in 2022 while they paid others $49.
It also showed variations in spending by the clinics at which patients received primary care. Yearly spending per patient topped out at $14,832 for those who received primary care from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, compared to $7,332 for patients of Bloomington-based HealthPartners.
Mayo has historically been the most expensive in this annual comparison, but its leaders have said it is deceptive because of the way the study assigns patients to clinics. Those assigned to Mayo include people who are receiving primary care in Rochester while also receiving specialized treatments and tests for complex and rare diseases.
Mayo isn’t alone on the high-cost spectrum. More than 20 other medical groups had per-patient costs that MN Community Measurement listed as above the norm.
Sonier said providers seem to be ordering fewer unnecessary procedures than in past years, so much of the variation is in how much they are charging for the necessary ones. The study holds primary care clinics responsible for the cost of care they provide to their patients, but also the cost of care provided by specialists.
“The idea is that primary care is serving as kind of a quarterback and coordinating care for people,” she said.
Effective diabetes management, for example, can delay the need for expensive insulin injections or disabling conditions that require surgeries or costly therapies.
Tired of hearing about north Minneapolis kids having to go trick-or-treating in the suburbs, business owner KB Brown started throwing a costume bash at the Capri Theater with the goal of bringing together families and the organizations that care for them.
Now in its fourth year, that Halloween party has become a stone soup of community organizations cooking out, roller skating and giving away tote bags of candy to tiny superheroes and princesses.
Elected officials, including state Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde, dropped in on the festivities Saturday to get out the vote in the final stretch of door-knocking season. KMOJ’s Q Bear DJed the party.
KB Brown and his grandson Zakari, 3. Brown founded Project Refocus, a nonprofit dealing with youth mentorship, security along the West Broadway business corridor and opioid response in the surrounding neighborhoods. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Farji Shaheer of Innovative SOULutions provided a bounce house and inflatable basketball hoops. A violence intervention professional who offers community training on treating traumatic bleeding, Shaheer recently purchased land in Bemidji to redevelop into a retreat center for gun violence survivors.
He in turn invited Santella Williams and Dominque Howard to bring Pull and Pay, a former Metro Mobility bus retrofitted as a mobile arcade full of vintage games such as “NBA Jam” and “Big Buck Hunter.” The bus was a pandemic epiphany for Williams and fiancé Howard when they suddenly found themselves with four kids and nowhere to take them after COVID-19 shut everything down. Pull and Pay now shows up to community events throughout the North Side.
Pull and Pay owner Dominique Howard showed kids, squeezed elbow to elbow, how to play “Big Buck Hunter” inside his homebuilt mobile arcade. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“This is the first time I’ve been able to come through, but we figured we’d stop by check it out. It’s so perfect, and such a beautiful day,” said Shannon Tekle, a Northside Economic Opportunity Network board member attending with her two-year daughter, both of them dressed as monarch butterflies.
“North Side, we’re a big family,” said Brown, proudly toting his grandson Zakari (a 3-year-old Chucky with candy-smeared cheeks) on one arm. “Everybody here is from the community.”
NOVI, Mich. — Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly referred to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper with a woman’s first name in recent days as the Republican presidential nominee focuses his closing message on a hypermasculine appeal to men.
On a Friday morning post on Trump’s social media site Truth Social, the former president referred to one of the most prominent openly gay journalists in the U.S. as “Allison Cooper.”
Trump made the subtext even more explicit later Friday during a rally in Traverse City, Michigan, where he criticized a town hall Cooper hosted with Vice President Kamala Harris.
”If you watched her being interviewed by Allison Cooper the other night, he’s a nice person. You know Allison Cooper? CNN fake news,” Trump said, before pausing and saying in a mocking voice: ”Oh, she said no, his name is Anderson. Oh, no.”
On Saturday, Trump repeated the name during another Michigan rally. ”They had a town hall,” Trump said. ”Even Allison Cooper was embarrassed by it. He was embarrassed by it.”
In referring to Cooper with a woman’s name, Trump appeared to turn to a stereotype heterosexual people have long deployed against gay men. Such rhetoric evokes the trope of gay men as effeminate and comes as Trump aims to drive up his appeal among men in the final stages of his bid to return to the White House.
The former president on Friday recorded a three-hour interview with Joe Rogan, a former mixed martial arts commentator whose podcast is wildly popular among young men. On Oct 19, Trump kicked off a Pennsylvania rally discussing legendary golfer Arnold Palmer’s genitalia.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. A representative for Cooper declined to comment.
According to Gomez, workers have had wages withheld under threats of possible deportations. Unauthorized workers are less likely to seek legal aid due to their legal status.
“What I want from this program is for other people not to suffer the same abuses that we’ve suffered in the past,” Gomez said. “This program is designed to prevent these abuses.”
CTUL said workers’ rights under the program will be shared in multiple languages.
Gomez specifically named Yellow Tree, United Properties, and Solhem Cos. as developers he’d like to see join the program. CTUL called for these companies, as well as Roers, Doran Properties Group, and MWF Properties, to adopt the standards.
Those working under developers in the program can report abuse to the standards council. After a complaint is made, the council will monitor contractors’ worksites to make sure they are complying with the standards.
If the council finds that a contractor is abusing workers, developers in CTUL’s program would be legally required to stop working with the contractor.
