Star Tribune
Ban hospitals, clinics from cutting off patients with unpaid medical bills
Gov. Tim Walz and DFL lawmakers want to reduce the pain of medical debt on Minnesotans by restricting collection activities and banning hospitals and clinics from denying non-emergency care to patients with substantial overdue bills.
Restrictions are needed to protect patients from suffering financial ruin on top of the severe or chronic diseases that necessitated their medical care, Walz said in a Capitol press conference Friday.
“Credit card debt to buy a television is one thing,” Walz said. “Debt because you have a heart attack or get hit by a car or have an illness is an entirely different thing. And the idea that we are charging massive interest on that or reporting it to a credit bureau and we’re destroying lives over it makes absolutely no sense.”
Hospitals already limit their collection activities through a voluntary agreement with the state Attorney General, but the legislation would make those limits permanent and expand them to clinics and outpatient facilities. Proposals include reducing interest on medical debts to 0%, preventing creditors from intercepting tax refunds from delinquent patients and relieving spouses from liability for their partners’ overdue bills.
Minneapolis-based Allina Health ended its practice of denying non-emergency care to patients with substantial unpaid debts after it faced public scrutiny, but other systems such as HealthPartners and Mayo Clinic have used it in limited circumstances. Minnesotans came to the rescue last summer of a pregnant woman in Glencoe, Minn., donating money to prevent her from losing access to local medical care because of unpaid bills.
The proposals could present challenges for an increasingly vulnerable network of hospitals and clinics in Minnesota, which is struggling with the costs of a nursing shortage and the boarding of patients who get stuck in inpatient beds because there is no space for them in nursing homes or rehab facilities.
Hospital operators collectively wrote off $475 million as bad or unpaid patient debts in 2022, according to newly released financial data. While that represents less than 1% of what they charged patients, it deepens financial concerns when considering that 41 of 128 hospitals in Minnesota operated at a loss that year.
Minnesota appears to have less of a problem with medical debts than other states, with the Urban Institute estimating that 2% of Minnesota adults have medical debts in collections, compared to 13% of adults nationwide. However, that widely-cited national figure is based on medical debts reported to credit rating agencies — and Minnesota hospitals don’t report debts to those agencies under their agreement with the attorney general.
DFL lawmakers want to ban all hospitals and clinics from reporting debts to agencies, arguing that medical debts are different from consumer debts because they involve surgeries or treatments over which patients often have no choice. Walz called that practice “unconscionable” and supported the ban in the legislation, titled the Medical Debt Fairness Act.
Walt Myers of Lakeville supported the provision that would prevent spousal liability for medical debt, having experienced this unusual allowance in Minnesota law that saddled him with thousands of dollars in unpaid bills from his late wife’s breast cancer treatment. It took months and stress to resolve $135,000 in debts, he said at the news conference. The legislation would have prevented that financial fight amid his grief.
“Unfortunately, I’m finding my story isn’t that uncommon,” he said.
The average medical debt lawsuit in Minnesota involved about $1,500, according to a review last fall of business-to-consumer cases filed since 2011. Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Minnesota State Bar Association revealed that finding, which suggests that the problem of medical debt goes beyond patients with extreme conditions such as cancer or major surgeries from traumatic accidents.
Many patients with unpaid debts can’t afford routine medical expenses, even if they have insurance, because the deductibles and cost-sharing requirements can be unaffordable, the report showed.
“If you borrow money, you should pay it back,” Ellison said at Friday’s announcement. “We all agree on that, but we should also agree we shouldn’t punish people for getting sick.”
One concern is that medical debts prompt Minnesotans to refrain from other forms of medical care they need, worsening their health and resulting in even more expensive emergency care and surgeries over time. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said she recalled as a child “feeling guilty” when she got sick at a time when medical bills drove her mother to file bankruptcy.
Medical providers sometimes write off debts entirely, or sell them at pennies on the dollar to collection agencies that then try to gain payment. A new option has emerged with RIP Medical Debt, a charitable organization that purchases debts at reduced cost from providers and then cancels them.
The organization has erased nearly $31 million in medical debts for almost 33,000 Minnesotans.
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
