Health Care
Native-led effort brings nighttime help to homeless
Close to midnight one Saturday, a couple dozen nurses, police officers, EMTs and social workers circled up in an empty break room on East Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis to plan their night helping the homeless. It was only the second night this group, with 17 different organizations represented, was meeting to coordinate their outreach efforts […]
Can we shop for health care? A Minnesota Reformer colloquy
Editor’s note: This is a response to a guest commentary by state Rep. Jennifer Schultz, DFL-Duluth, about whether patients shopping for their health care will help control costs. Her response to this guest commentary can be read below. The fundamental problem with our health care system is that it does not empower patients. Instead, our […]
Map: Minnesota counties with limited access to opioid addiction treatment
Opioid addiction treatment remains out of reach for many Minnesotans. In 43 of Minnesota’s 87 counties, there are no doctors who can prescribe a drug proven to be safe and effective in treating opioid addiction, according to 2018 data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. To prescribe buprenorphine, doctors are required under […]
1,800 HealthPartners workers vote in favor of week-long strike
The strike is on. More than 1,800 nurses, physicians assistants and other health care workers at HealthPartners won’t show up for work at some 30 clinics across the Twin Cities Feb. 19 unless a deal is reached before then. Workers, represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, announced they filed a 10-day strike notice Friday morning in […]
Danger zone: Work is safer than it used to be, but some jobs are still hazardous
Work-related illness and injuries in Minnesota reached all-time lows in 2018, but experts are concerned about persistently high injury rates in risky industries like construction and agriculture. Workplace injury rates have dropped nationwide in the past several decades because of regulatory and cultural changes. Farmers and construction workers are still at higher risk of being […]
SEIU health care workers headed for strike vote with HealthPartners
Hundreds of nurses, lab technicians, dental hygienists and other health care workers are headed toward a strike vote this week after failing to reach an agreement about their health coverage with their employer HealthPartners. HealthPartners and the negotiating team for SEIU Healthcare Minnesota worked late into the night on Friday, with their previous contract expiring […]
3,000 HealthPartners workers prepared to strike over their own health care
More than 1,800 nurses and other medical care workers at HealthPartners could vote to strike next week if they don’t reach a new contract agreement by Friday at midnight. The workers say they are standing firm against a company effort to cut employee health benefits. HealthPartners, which has 26,000 employees and more than $7 billion […]
What happens in Minnesota if Obamacare gets struck down by the courts?
At least 300,000 Minnesotans may lose health coverage if the Affordable Care Act is overturned, which is the entirely possible outcome of a lawsuit winding its way through the courts. The 2018 election hinged on the largely successful Democratic message that they would keep in place protections afforded by the Affordable Care Act, sometimes known […]
Minnesota is projected to lose a seat in Congress. Here’s why that’s a huge deal
WASHINGTON — Minnesota is projected to lose a U.S. House seat in the coming years, new data show — a change that would diminish the state’s influence in national politics and could lead to less money for federally funded projects and services like roads and health care. The North Star State is one of 10 […]
Newest phase in opioid epidemic: Mix of opioids and stimulants like coke and meth
Minnesota health officials and researchers are tracking a troubling trend in the opioid crisis, even amid a decline in the total number of opioid-involved deaths. A recent rise in overdose deaths involving multiple drugs — like methamphetamine and opioids together — signals that we’ve potentially entered a new phase in the epidemic, due in part […]
Price transparency alone won’t keep health care costs down
Surveys consistently show that affordability of healthcare is a top issue that Americans want their elected officials to address. The United States spends twice as much per capita on health care as other developed nations — $10,586 compared with the $5,086 OECD average. It’s a tremendous burden on federal and state budgets, businesses and public […]
Safe injection sites are successful internationally, so why did Minneapolis say no?
In 2019, the city of Minneapolis recorded more than 1,300 drug overdoses, the most in at least a dozen years. At the start of that dismal year, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey rejected proposals to open safe places for addicts to use drugs under medical supervision, which advocates say could have contained the 2019 overdose epidemic. […]