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.
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.
Star Tribune
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
”We are looking at a health care crisis in America that is affecting people of every background and gender,” Harris told reporters before visiting the doctor’s office.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden went to a union hall in Pittsburgh to promote Harris’ support for organized labor, telling the audience to ”follow your gut” and ”do what’s right.”
Harris appeared with Beyoncé on Friday in Houston, and she campaigned with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen on Thursday in Atlanta.
It’s a level of celebrity clout that surpasses anything that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has been able to marshal this year. But there’s no guarantee that will help Harris in the close race for the White House. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite firing up her crowds with musical performances and Democratic allies.
Trump brushed off Harris’ attempt to harness star power for her campaign.
”Kamala is at a dance party with Beyoncé,” the former president said Friday in Traverse City, Michigan. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to hold a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, on Saturday before a later event in State College, Pennsylvania.
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.”
Navy issues apology for destroying Alaska Native village in 1882
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
Navy issues apology for destroying Alaska Native village in 1882
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city