Health care law, Vikings, stabbings

 

Catching up on impact of new health care law

 This report in the Washington Post last week may be a little eye opening for those who follow news on the federal health care reform legislation.

In my mind, the media covers far more of the controversy over this law than some of the substance.

Here's an example of substance. In effect, the law requires insurance companies to provide rebates. Almost unbelievable when you think about it. That provision was actually provided by Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, because it is more or less modeled after Minnesota Law.

Not all is rosy with this provision, however.

Here's the salient points of the Post story:

" Insurance companies will have to return more than $1 billion this year to consumers and businesses, thanks to a new requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, a report released Thursday concludes."

"That's real money, says Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which analyzed industry filings with state insurance commissioners. The law requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of the premiums they collect on medical care and quality improvements — or issue rebates to policyholders."

"This is one of the most tangible benefits of the health reform law that consumers will have seen to date," said
"
Levitt, an expert on private health insurance. The nonpartisan foundation is an information clearinghouse on the nation's health care system, and its research is widely cited."

The report comes with a caveat. It lacks data on the nation's most populous state, California, because complete filings there were not available. Nonetheless, the analysis estimates that consumers and businesses in other states will receive rebates of $1.3 billion, in some cases in the form of a discount on next year's premiums.

The insurance industry says consumers should take little comfort from the rebates, because the companies expect premiums to go up overall as a result of new benefits and other requirements of the new law.

"The net of all the requirements will be an increase in costs for consumers," said Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the main industry trade group.

"The report says the rebates are only one of the ways in which consumers may benefit from tighter scrutiny of the health insurance industry under the federal law, which provides funding for state regulators to monitor the companies more closely. Self-conscious insurers may be hesitating to push state regulators for premium increases as large as they were able to win in the past."

"This `sentinel' effect on premiums has likely produced more savings for consumers and employers than the rebates themselves," the report said.

Fly-speck scrutiny of the insurance industry won't solve the problem of rising health care costs, the report acknowledged, but it "can help to ensure that consumers and businesses get greater value for their premium dollar."

Legislative showdown arrives again.

The scene at the Legislature with a last minute showdown between Gov. Mark Dayton and Republicans in the Legislature seems reminiscent of last year. That seems to be what a lot of the political reporters are saying on Twitter the last few days.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the whole thing breakdown into a "do nothing" year, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if they come to agreement on even one major issue.

I was surprised at Dayton's veto of bipartisan fireworks bill. Not sure what he gained on that one.

Also surprised Republicans did not pass Vikings bill. They apparently had many DFL votes in House and Senate and would have forced Dayton to veto it, which wouldn't have been likely to do.

But waiting, makes it part of Global deal and that may play into Dayton's hand. He gets leverage from something he was already in favor of.

Stabbings in Mankato

Social media on The Free Press website and on our Facebook page has more than the usual number of regular citizens wondering what's going on with these "stabbings."

The stabbing Sunday morning seemed very random, unless something else was operating there. We know the stabbing last week was a domestic dispute related stabbing, apparently.

Interesting that the day we hear about stabbings, the "serial stabber" of Michigan goes to trial. 

From the AP: "Nearly two years later, an Israeli-born drifter goes to trial Tuesday for the first time since Flint's shocking summer of 2010, when as many as 14 people were stabbed in the area, five fatally."

Weird, just weird.

Highway 14 safety gets attention

The saga of Highway 14 took a new turn this week as a safety audit by independent consultants determined the road from North Mankato to New Ulm was even more dangerous and deadly than previously thought.

This story is of great interest to the communities along the road and us here at The Free Press. In 2010, reporter Mark Fischenich spent months researching the crash rates on the highway and interviewing numerous sources for what became a three part-series on the highway.

Pouring over pages and pages of statistics, our report determined Highway 14 from North Mankato to New Ulm had a fatal crash rate nearly twice the state average. In my mind it is one of the most significant reports on public policy this newspaper has ever done.

The series has been recognized with awards from various organizations.

But the recent safety audit only confirms what we determined, but even more so.

The recent safety audit determined it is now three times the state average.

In a positive sign, it appears MnDOT officials are going to do something about the safety. There are several shorter-term solutions to improve safety quickly, including a center cable fence, rumble strips in the median and widening the road in places.

But the complete four lane expansion from North Mankato to New Ulm did not appear to be a solution MnDOT favored, mostly because officials say the state does not have $300 million to spend on it. Although it's important to note Sen. Kathy Sheran got MnDOT officials to say at a recent hearing that the four lane was not out of the question.

We argued in an editorial Thursday, that the money doesn't have to be the hold up. The "convenience project" of upgrading the Highway 169, 494 interchange cost $125 million alone.

I've been communicating with legislators and the governor's office, arguing again and again how important it is to make this road safe and how long we've been fighting for it. Local legislators of both parties are supportive. We're seeing the governor's office give this more personal attention than ever before.

The next step may be gathering public support to at the very least get approval of some of the more significant temporary measures and get the four-lane project on MnDOT's 20 year list for completion.

Stay tuned for how you can help.

Civic center and economic development

People have come up to me, even legislators, and asked if Mankato's bonding request to expand the Verizon Wireless Center is anything that will really generate economic activity or benefit anyone other than those who do business near the civic center.

Well, my short answer is yes. And we can look to history as our evidence.

I covered business in Mankato from 1990 until 1996, and even some after that, but that was the period when the civic center was developed. The 1990 downtown Mankato was a very different place than it is today.

Extremely different.

The River Hills Mall opened in 1991 and much of the downtown "Mankato Mall's" retail left downtown for the mall on the hill. There was nothing that was going to stop this. The business trends were simply dictating it.

Retail tends to be a business that grows best and fastest when it is together in one location. That's not really rocket science.

So, we had all this infrastructure in the mall and the old Brett's building that was not going to be used for retail shopping anymore, or anytime in even the distant future.

The next idea was to create an entertainment district drawing people downtown for eating and drinking places. But you still need traffic to operate those businesses on any kind of scale.

As retail left, so too did the foot traffic. One could not operate a small sandwich shop successfully. Remember Ruth's deli? In the mall's heyday, she did just fine. When retail left, so too did Ruth.

So business and city leaders had to come up with a way to generate traffic downtown. You needed not only regular traffic but also event traffic.

City leaders moved on transforming the mall infrastructure into a government/office use with some success. But they needed to get things going by locating Mankato City Hall and the District 77 offices in what was the old JC Penney building. They also added on a facade and extra space.

But the city and school district offices were one of the first tenants in the new revitalized downtown space. That started the ball rolling. Later, developer Gordon Awsumb came into buy the balance of the mall and the Brett's building.

He was able to get other tenants like the Minnesota Workforce Center, Social Security and Public Defender offices.

It was important Awsumb not just get other business tenants. Businesses come and go. He landed the government office tenants that would bring some stability to the property. The property was sold as a "government services center."

That made a lot of sense.

The Civic Center came next. There was a referendum on imposing a local sales tax to pay for the bonds. It passed. The center was built and opened around 1995.

Since that time, the civic center has had up and down years for concerts, tradeshows and the like. That's not really surprising. Civic center business flows with the economy.

As a business reporter and observer and someone who has some training in economics (a master's degree), I would say that the downtown of 1990 Mankato was going nowhere without some help. It turned out to be government help, and the help of a developer who was able to purchase property at a price that posed little risk if things went south.

One by one, the buildings and infrastructure of the downtown mall would have turned into East St. Louis fast. You might have had a marginal business here or there, but in my mind it would have gone absolutely nowhere. We might have been famous for the ugliest downtown in outstate Minnesota.

The mall owner was going to let it go back to the bank, as they did the Brett's building.

These properties would have cost the city of Mankato much, much more to demolish or deal with than providing a developer with a subsidy or relocating their own offices.

Downtowns at the time were deteriorating all over in cities the size of Mankato.

Today, we've got development, we've got property values that have soared from their 1990 lows. We've got people who have a reason to come downtown. The crowds that come in for civic center events and hockey games would be unimaginable in 1990.

In 1990, if you would've have told someone that in five or six years, you wouldn't be able to find a spot to sit at one of six of seven restaurants before an event, they would have laughed at you.

In economics, you measure business in two ways. You either increase your profits, or minimize your losses.

Mankato was facing some huge losses in 1990 if it did nothing. I would say we not only minimized losses, but we pretty much hit this one out of the park.

Franken meets Free Press editors, writers

Sen. Al Franken met with Free Press editors and writers for about an hour today in his first meeting with the staff since he took office in July 2009.

A few takeaways from the meeting:

Franken only won Nicollet County by about 150 votes and Blue Earth County by about 800. All seven surrounding counties voted for Norm Coleman in the 2008 election.

Franken was asked if he feels he had done anything to convince more of those who voted against him to maybe be with him come re-election time.

"As I go around, I feel people saying "You've exceeded my expectations." he said, then joked, as he thanks them for having low expectations.

Franken seems to really have sort of flown under the media radar for his first four years, which have gone by quickly. That seems like it's by design, as Franken says he wanted to be a "workhorse" not a "showhorse" when he arrived in the Senate, winning the election by only 312 votes and getting only 42 percent of the total.

A few things that he can claim credit for:

He did author a provision in the health care reform bill that requires 80 to 85 percent of  amount insurance companies charge in premiums be spent on actual health care, not on administration or pay bonuses.

It's something he took from what already happens in Minnesota law and it was adopted into the federal health care law. If the companies don't meet the standard, they have to give back part of the premiums to ratepayers.

The law was implemented in 2011, but one study showed it would have saved people $2 billion in general on their health care costs that year. Aetna in Connecticut apparently lowered its premium 10 percent this year because of the law, according to Franken.

Franken also takes credit for a part of the financial reform legislation that removed conflicts of interest rating agencies have with investment banks. The investment banks paid out fees to the rating agencies and rating agencies in turn had incentive to provide ratings that were better than they should have been.

Franken got the amendment on the bill with bipartisan support with 65 votes in the Senate.

It was later watered down in conference committee, because, according to Franken,  Sen. Chris Dodd, author of the bill, didn't like it. But he said the new provision did require a study of the conflict and if it is determined the conflict did not go away, it will be implemented.

Franken also said the federal help for funding Highway 14 may be difficult now that "earmarks" have gone away.

He said he disagreed that the health care mandate is unconstitutional and said a 5-4 Supreme Court decision on repeal would not be good for the court or its legacy.