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City approves help for St. Paul residents with medical debt
Mayor Melvin Carter said he learned about this approach to ease the burden of medical debt on residents by researching what other cities were doing.
ST PAUL, Minn. — St. Paul residents drowning in medical debt could soon see some relief.
On Wednesday, the St. Paul City Council passed an $844 million budget for 2024. The plan called for an innovative medical debt relief program, in which the city will invest more than $1 million in American Rescue Plan funds into the nonprofit organization RIP Medical Debt. That investment will, in turn, provide more than $100 million in medical debt relief.
“The truth is, it’s not that creative,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter shared on Thursday, adding, “It’s what private sector companies do all the time. That’s the way debt works. If a company tries to collect on a $100 [medical] bill — and they can’t — then they sell it to some debt collection company for $50. And then they sell it to another one for $25. Debt trades for pennies on the dollar all the time.”
Carter’s office estimates the plan will benefit 45,000 St. Paul residents.
“We know medical debt hits every cross section of our community. We also know the medical debt hits low-income Americans, hits communities of color, particularly hard,” he said. “Our number one strategy for economic development in our city is to make sure that people have dollars in their pocket.”
Carter said he learned about this approach to providing financial relief, while ensuring ongoing access to medical care, by researching what other cities were doing. He specifically talked with Cleveland leaders after they passed a similar measure.
“I’m good friends with the mayor of Cleveland and when they announced their plan to do that this summer, I gave him a call and told him: ‘Hey, tell me about that.’ So, we made sure St. Paul was right behind them.”
So far, health systems who stand to collect payment on delinquent accounts have expressed support for the plan, including M Health Fairview, HealthPartners, Allina Health and Children’s. But Carter has also heard from those who questioned whether this was the right way to spend federal pandemic relief funds.
“I heard people say: ‘Is that the right use of these funds? Is that the right role in municipal governance?’ I’ll tell you one thing that my years of public service taught me, is when we recognize a problem, our residents, our constituents are tired of hearing leaders saying, ‘Maybe that’s somebody else’s job.’ This is pandemic relief, and this is an initiative that is geared around access to health care.”
Under the plan, residents will need to financially qualify for the relief. According to the city, that includes residents with household income between zero percent and up to 400 percent of Federal Poverty Guidelines. Residents also qualify for relief if their medical debt represents five percent or more of their annual household income.
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Jerry McAfee, founder of 21 Days of Peace, said many of these kids are committing crimes for recreation and don’t understand the consequences of their actions.
MINNEAPOLIS — Community leaders say they were disheartened to see the latest string of youth crime, but they’re not shocked.
“The youth that age and younger have been participating in criminal activity long before you guys just found out,” said KG Wilson, a retired peace activist.
Wilson said the perception of kids committing crimes is hard for people to imagine.
“Nobody wanted to believe that these children this young would be doing this type of criminal activity in the community,” he said. “Instead of them listening to the few of us that we’re trying to tell them about this before it gets worse, it got worse. And then you got the taps on the hands because a lot of these kids have been doing this for years.”
Jerry McAfee has seen the same things. He’s the founder of 21 Days of Peace and works with dozens of kids to keep them on the right path.
“This behavior is not new. What is new is we are yet to be alarmed to the point that the necessary synergy is created to get ahead of that stuff and to try and stop it,” McAfee said.
He believes it’s time for a new approach.
“What we were doing three or four years ago and have been doing the last few years isn’t working. It’s getting worse. So, if it’s getting worse just stop, admit it’s not working, and let’s put something together,” he said.
McAfee said many of these kids are committing crimes for recreation and don’t understand the consequences of their actions.
“That’s the message they got to get. This is not games. This is real-life,” he said. “I don’t think there is many repercussions, and what kids deem now as fun is dangerous.”
Wilson agrees the problem is getting worse each year, and kids and teenagers need to be held accountable.
“There’s going to have to be some consequences to their actions and they’re going to have know, these children are going have to know if you do this, this is what’s going to happen to you,” Wilson said. “If that doesn’t happen, they’re going to say and think in their mind, we can do anything we want and we’re just going to get a pat on the hand.”
He said it’s not all on the parents. He said some of them have tried to get their child help, but nothing seems to work.
“A lot of times these kids have gotten so out of control that some of the parents fear them. The parents fear them,” he said.
Wilson believes people need to become neighbors again and look out for kids on their block.
“We got to start getting back to community meetings,” he said. “It’s about tough love. It’s going to have to be about tough love. You’re going to have to get tough. It’s either you’re going to let them go, let the streets have them, or you’re going to take them back yourself.”
McAfee said it might be time to air public service announcements explaining the consequences of committing crimes.
The boy had been last seen on the 2500 block of 14th Ave S.
MINNEAPOLIS — Police in Minneapolis say a 4-year-old who was reported missing has been found safe.
According to the Minneapolis Police Department, Jacob Gonzalez Orbe had been last seen around 3:40 p.m. Wednesday on the 2500 block of 14th Ave S.
In an update Monday evening, police said he was found and is safe.
This story has been updated from a previous version.
Record warming in the Gulf of Mexico led to rapid intensification that even alarmed experts.
MINNEAPOLIS — The size and scope of Hurricane Milton is now so obvious that it can be seen from space, but the speed that it grew is what has been truly breathtaking.
John Morales, a veteran hurricane specialist for NBC 6 South Florida, verbally gasped and grew emotional while watching the storm rapidly intensify.
“It has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours,” Morales said on the station’s live stream. “I apologize. This is just horrific.”
That video has now gone viral not just because of Morales’ emotional reaction, but also because of his frank explanation for it.
“The seas are just so incredibly, incredibly hot, record hot, as you might imagine,” Morales said. “You know what’s driving that. I don’t need to tell you. Global warming. Climate change.”
John Abraham, a professor of thermal sciences at the University of St Thomas, has been saying the same for years now.
“The warming that we’re seeing is entirely human driven,” said Abraham, who has worked with oceanographers to study and track the explosive warming of the ocean. “Think about the energy of a Hiroshima atomic bomb that ended World War II -six times that – every second for the entire year. That’s how much heat is going into the ocean.”
He says record heat in the Gulf of Mexico is exactly what’s fueling Milton.
“When we think about global warming, it’s really an energy balance problem,” Abraham said. “Ninety percent of the global warming heat ends up in the oceans, and as the ocean waters heat up, that’s what gives fuel to these storms. It increases their size, their wind speed, the rainfall and the storm surge. Parts of Florida are expected to get 18 inches of rain as Milton comes ashore.”
He sais there’s no sign of that trend slowing down. Amid all the warming in the gulf over the past 10 years, this year hit another new high. He said the implications are clear.
“We’re not going to get more storms, but the big storms are going to be bigger,” Abraham said. “We are seeing more of those big, really destructive storms because of climate change. That, along with that rapid intensification, is what scientists are really focused on.”
John Morales shared that exact concern in the wake of Hurricane Helene, he just didn’t expect his warning to be realized so soon.
“Climate change is here,” Abraham said. “We are well past the point of being able to stop climate change. But there is good news actually. We’re not past the point of being able to do something good about it. If we think about climate change, it’s going up like a rocket like this. We want to bring the curve down. We have the power to pick a more sustainable path, we just need the political will to do so.”
