Star Tribune
Blue Cross, Minnesota State partner to open needed mental health clinic in Mankato
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has pledged $5 million over five years to open an outpatient clinic in Mankato that can address the shortage of rural mental health care while providing hands-on training for the next generation of nurses, counselors and psychologists.
Minnesota’s largest nonprofit health insurer announced the funding commitment on Tuesday for the clinic, which will open this year and provide in-person mental health care for eight counties surrounding Mankato. South-central Minnesota has been federally listed since 2022 as lacking mental health professionals.
“Geography should not be a barrier to accessing mental and behavioral health services,” said Brett Hart, vice president of mental and behavioral health parity for Eagan-based Blue Cross. “Far too often, especially in greater Minnesota, mental health needs far exceed available resources.”
Depression and anxiety have been rising problems in Minnesota, particularly in the years since the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly 24% of Minnesota adults were told in 2022 that they have a form of depression, according to federal survey results, which is an increase from 18% a decade earlier.
Mankato and surrounding Blue Earth County have one of the highest poverty rates in Minnesota, which can exacerbate mental health struggles. Minnesota’s depression rate was 43% in 2022 for adults in low-income households.
Blue Cross’ investment is in partnership with Minnesota State University, Mankato, and its College of Allied Health and Nursing. The college will rotate students to the clinic so they can put their training into practice under the supervision of faculty and licensed professionals.
“There are no other academic training clinics in the state that are also specifically focused on providing integrated outpatient mental health services to rural Minnesotans,” said Edward Inch, the university’s president.
The Minnesota Legislature also had allocated $1.5 million in 2023 for the clinic, which will provide mental health counseling and medication management to patients of all ages, regardless of their insurance status. The clinic will be adjacent to the university campus, and will eventually expand to provide virtual therapy appointments as well as psychoeducation evaluations and counseling for substance use disorders.
WASHINGTON — Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, suggested this week that it would have been better for the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden had abandoned his reelection campaign sooner and the party had then held a competitive primary process to replace him.
In an interview Thursday with the New York Times, Pelosi said what was widely reported around the time Biden dropped out: that she believed it was implicitly understood that his exit would be followed by an internal party competition for a new nominee, instead of an anointment of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said during an interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a host of “The Interview,” a Times podcast. She added during the interview, “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.”
Pelosi went on: “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
Biden endorsed Harris within an hour after he ended his campaign in July, a decision he made only after an intense pressure campaign from Democrats that Pelosi quietly led. His support for the vice president, along with backing from many other Democrats, choked off any avenue for a challenger to emerge. Over two weeks, Harris swiftly gathered support from delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
While some Democrats floated the idea of a quick primary, those proposals never gained traction and were not embraced by the Democratic National Committee or convention delegates.
In the interview, Pelosi went to great lengths to defend the Biden administration’s legislative accomplishments, most of which took place during his first two years, when she was the House speaker. After Republicans won control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, she relinquished her leadership post but remained in the chamber as an eminence grise for the party.
The former speaker, who was elected Tuesday to her 20th term representing San Francisco, argued in the interview that the Democratic Party still stood up for working-class voters on economic issues.
Eagan authorities are asking residents to stay vigilant after two sexual assaults at Lebanon Hills Regional Park.
The Eagan Police Department said a woman was attacked while walking alone on one of the park’s trails around 11 a.m. on Nov. 7. Her assault follows a “similar incident” near the same location on Sept. 7, but that victim got away from the suspect. No arrests have been made.
“The Eagan Police Department and Dakota County Sheriff’s Office have increased patrol activity in and around the Lebanon Hills Regional Park,” a news release said. “We are actively working on leads in both cases, therefore this is an open/active investigation, so no further information will be released.”
While investigators search for suspects, police asked residents to remain cautious by: walking in pairs or groups, staying aware of their surroundings, avoiding poorly lit areas and staying in populated areas, and reporting suspicious activity to 911.
But in May that year, DFLers voted to expel Independent-Republican Rep. Robert Pavlak of St. Paul. The DFL had sued Pavlak, alleging he distributed false information in campaign literature. Sviggum said Pavlak reprinted a newspaper editorial that got some facts wrong. Pavlak lost an appeal of the case, and the DFL moved to oust him. Because Pavlak could not vote in his own case, the vote was 67-66, and he was removed. That move gave the DFL a one-seat majority.
“It was power politics at its best, or worst,” Sviggum said. The floor session was tense.
“You could hear a pin drop on the House floor,” he said. “There were tears being shed, real tears.”
Murphy said the vote to expel Pavlak was one of the hardest of her 46-year career in the House.
Hortman said she hopes today’s leaders will not try to remove members, and will instead work across the aisle.
She repeatedly pointed to her experience in the 2020-21 session working with former Sen. Paul Gazelka, then the Republican Senate majority leader. With divided government, Minnesota got a budget passed, along with some bipartisan police accountability bills after the murder of George Floyd.
