Star Tribune
Minnesota lawmakers unveil compromise health budget, delay on MinnesotaCare expansion
An expansion of the MinnesotaCare health plan and other health reforms were delayed or shelved Friday night as lawmakers announced compromises on a health budget bill that would increase state spending by $1.7 billion over the next two years.
Lawmakers on a conference committee recommended that Minnesota spend next year studying the economic value of expanding eligibility to the public health plan beyond low-income individuals. If the results were favorable, then the expansion and MinnesotaCare public option would take place in 2025.
They also decided to first study whether the state could reign in drug costs by taking direct control over the pharmacy benefits for public health plans.
Sen. Melissa Wiklund, DFL-Bloomington, said tough decisions had to be made to resolve differences between the House and Senate budget bills – with only a few days left in the legislative session. The Senate had recommended a rebasing that would boost payment rates by the state’s public health programs to Minnesota’s financially struggling hospitals. But that was scrapped in the final version.
“It was just a matter of trying to balance all of the things we were trying to include in the bill,” she said.
The compromise proposal also canceled plans to create a health care affordability board, which would set spending growth rates for Minnesota hospitals and possibly fine those that exceeded those rates. The creation of the board was one of two legislative proposals that prompted Mayo Clinic to threaten to move a billion-dollar expansion project to another state.
Mayo got its way on both. All of its hospitals were exempted from separate legislation that would require hospitals to set up committees of administrators, nurses and other caregivers to establish nurse staffing levels.
The affordability board could have been problematic for Mayo, which tends to be a higher-cost provider than others in Minnesota. The compromise health budget will still create a division of health care affordability within the Minnesota Department of Health to monitor health care spending and cost-saving solutions.
The compromise included funding to support long COVID survivors and study the impact of the mysterious condition. Some initiatives to boost mental health and substance abuse treatment programs were funded while others were cut or received less money.
Payment rates for abortion and reproductive health services were boosted by 20% under the compromise bill, which will require approval by the House and Senate before it is presented to Gov. Tim Walz.
The session hasn’t been great for hospitals not named Mayo. While nurses and their union leaders argued that hospital nurse staffing committees will reduce worker burnout and improve patient care, hospital leaders worried that they will have to close units or deny patients when they don’t have the staffing available to meet the committee’s requirements.
Hospitals needed a rebasing of the payment rates by which state health plans pay for care, said Joe Schindler, a finance vice president for the Minnesota Hospital Association. The current methodology results in payments that are about 28% below cost.
“Finances at hospitals and health systems are at historically low levels,” he said.
Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, lamented the lack of support for hospitals during the conference committee.
“It seems like that is something we really should do … to keep them squared away,” he said.
The committee meeting ended late Friday without a vote, but Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, a key author of the health budget, said the compromise will be presented without any more changes to the House and Senate.
“This is not open for negotiation any further,” she said.
When the Minnesota Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal by the University of St. Thomas regarding the environmental impact of its new hockey/basketball arena under construction, neighbor and arena foe Dan Kennedy said the “ethical” thing for the university to do was stop construction until neighbor concerns are addressed.
Not going to happen, university officials said Thursday.
While a public review of a revised Environmental Assessment Worksheet continues through Nov. 7, construction of the 5,000-seat Lee and Penny Anderson Arena continues. In an e-mail Thursday, a university spokesman said the arena is expected to be completed in fall 2025.
“The University of St. Thomas is aware of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision to deny its petition to appeal and is reviewing the potential impacts of this decision,” an emailed statement from St. Thomas said. “Last week, the City of St. Paul published an updated EAW for public comment, and that process will continue. Construction of the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena will also continue, as permitted by law.”
But Kennedy said he believes that decision is not only wrong, but illegal. Because the state Court of Appeals this summer ruled the project’s first environmental review was inadequate, its site plans and building permits are invalid, said the president of Advocates for Responsible Development.
“We need somebody to specifically tell the University of St. Thomas that they must comply with the law,” Kennedy said. “This is an institution of higher learning, with a law school. They should comply with the law.”
Kennedy said he thought the Minnesota Court of Appeals had insisted on exactly that. In August, the appellate court ordered the city and university to conduct a new Environmental Assessment Worksheet. The previous assessment didn’t do enough to study the arena’s potential harm to the neighborhood’s parking, traffic and air quality, the court ruled.
“The reason why is that more sunlight in the morning time helps reinforce waking up, and having less light in the evening is less stimulation,” he said. “So when we’re winding down, preparing for sleep, having fewer hours of sunlight in the evening can help promote that process of falling asleep.”
Akingbola acknowledges that it can be sad to walk out of work or school when it’s already dark out, but in the long run, standard time is the way to go.
The U.S. already tried daylight savings year round in 1974
Despite the medical advice, there have been calls in recent years to make daylight savings time permanent.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, tried to pass a bill as recently as 2021 to make daylight savings time permanent, but it did not pass the Legislature.
The U.S. tried once before. According to Minnesota Star Tribune archives, due to an energy crisis, President Richard Nixon passed a law in January 1974 that made daylight savings a year-round thing.
A month into it, the Minneapolis Tribune ran an article saying there were calls to reverse the decision because there were more accidents in the pre-dawn darkness, particularly involving school children waiting for the bus. Under daylight savings time in January, sunrise wasn’t until well after 8 a.m. in Minnesota.
Karl-Anthony Towns may be in New York City, but his heart is in Minnesota.
On Wednesday night, Towns had some sweet seats for a Billie Eilish show at Madison Square Garden with his partner, Jordyn Woods, when she caught him watching the Timberwolves play the Chicago Bulls in a preseason game on his phone. Her video, posted to her Instagram story, made rounds on social media Thursday.
In the video, flames are literally spewing out from Eilish’s stage, lights are flashing all around and others in the crowd are head bobbing. And there is Towns, holding his phone in both hands and muttering to himself as the Timberwolves are down 88-75 late in the third quarter in a meaningless game.
“I promise he was enjoying the concert,” Woods wrote in the video’s caption.
The Wolves would go on to lose that game, 125-123. A nail-biter.
Towns’ trade to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and others stunned the NBA world and all of Minnesota, where he was a beloved player for nine seasons and a leader on a team rapidly ascending toward championship contention.
“It was a lot of emotions,” Towns said. “Some amazing moments and times in nine years of my life in Minnesota, a place that I’ve called home. Guys who are not just teammates to me but brothers. We were like brothers. It definitely was a wild day, definitely coming to work.”
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