Excerpts from recent Minnesota editorials

Minneapolis Star Tribune, March 31

Trump should seize chance to be a health care problem-solver, innovator

The rationale heard repeatedly in Congress from Minnesota Rep. Jason Lewis and others during the debate over the Republican health reform plan boiled down to this: We should vote for this bill because we made a campaign promise to repeal Obamacare.

What Lewis and his party need to grasp, especially in the wake of the GOP plan’s recent failure, is that voters’ judgments are going to be based far more on pragmatic metrics than political ones. Primarily, did Republicans now controlling Congress help friends, family and neighbors better afford quality care and coverage?

In our view, the Republican plan, known as the American Health Care Act (AHCA), would have made health insurance more affordable for some - the young and wealthy - but with unacceptable trade-offs, such as dramatic premiums increases for older people, the loss of coverage for 24 million people and cuts to long-term care funding. Ongoing Republican arguments for this plan are moot. They don’t have the numbers to pass it.

Those with an eye toward re-election in 2018 and beyond should see the current situation as an opportunity not a setback. While President Trump has said accurately, if belatedly, that health care is “hard,” fixing the Obama health reform law’s flaws need not be. There is widespread consensus in health policy circles on what should be done. Those doing political calculations should also factor in that fixing what’s in place vs. starting over with something brand-new is an easier sell to voters. That’s why the 2010 Obama law has broad support, while polls showed that fewer than 20 percent supported the AHCA.

A message from congressional leadership saying that pragmatic fixes are the strategy, even for the short-term, would help stabilize the individual health insurance market right now. This market, where about 5 percent of Minnesotans buy coverage, is where consumers buy plans if they don’t get insurance through employers or public programs such as Medicare. Uncertainty over congressional action has made insurers leery. The result: fewer choices and higher-priced premiums to cover their risk.

More specific strategies for improving competition and affordability shouldn’t be a heavy lift, either. Congress should revive the Obama law’s temporary financial-risk protection programs for insurers. These funds were put in place to help insurers adjust to an individual market that reformers knew would be made volatile by new consumer protections and better access to coverage. But a 2015 measure backed by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., undercut one of these aid programs, a move that led to rising premiums.

Expanding and extending another one of these financial risk programs - “reinsurance” - is also worthwhile. Reinsurance offsets medical care costs for consumers with expensive medical needs. Just a few of these patients can sharply drive up premiums. Minnesota legislators have passed a reinsurance measure this session, but continuing that level of state funding is daunting.

Congress also should back away from its efforts to derail the Obama law’s “cost-sharing” provisions, which helped consumers meet deductibles. In addition, the Trump administration should signal that it will vigorously enforce the individual mandate to buy insurance. That would enlarge the insurance “risk pool” and help drive down premium costs for everyone.

The brash real-estate developer in the White House might also consider going beyond incremental improvements. Allowing Americans 55 and older to buy into Medicare, the federally run program for those 65 and up, would likely have broad voter appeal and reset the health debate.

Launching a Medicare buy-in would be more complex than it first appears, but backing it would allow Trump to rebrand himself as a health care innovator. That could be a boost for an administration struggling to find its footing.

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The Free Press of Mankato, March 31

Bonding: House must step up with bonding bill

The Minnesota GOP Senate and DFL Gov. Mark Dayton, as well as the minority DFL caucus in the House, have all put forth bonding proposals to address the critical and unmet needs of building projects all over the state.

Now the Minnesota House GOP majority must get a sense of urgency to put forth its own proposal so we can get this bonding done. It should have been done last year. But the House GOP waited until the closing days and minutes of the session last year. The bonding bill failed in the ensuing chaos. That was bad management.

So all those projects just got more expensive through inflation. We are also now in an environment where interest rates will continue to rise maybe two or three times this year. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted with the delay.

The Senate GOP majority, to its credit, has come forth with a bonding bill. The governor’s bonding bill was out months ago. And a few weeks ago, the House DFL put forth a proposal in an unusual move in an effort to get this conversation jump-started.

The minority party in the House does not normally propose any bonding bill. House Capital Investment Committee Chair Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, told The Free Press he plans to propose a bonding bill and thinks the GOP will get one done.

That’s good to hear, but Urdahl also told The Free Press that while he would like to get a bonding bill done sooner than later, he “doesn’t call the shots.”

So, it’s incumbent on House Speaker Kurt Daudt to “call the shots” and get a bonding bill out of the House soon. We’ve already wasted enough time on this issue.

Many critical projects remain in the balance including a $70 million renovation of the St. Peter Security Hospital and $6.5 million to finish Minnesota State University’s clinical sciences building. The Senate bill includes $200 million Corridors of Commerce funding, some of which would go to the completion of Highway 14 as a four-lane from Rochester to New Ulm.

Many of the rural areas Republicans in the House represent desperately need things like upgrades to their water treatment plants and other basic infrastructure needs.

It’s time for the House GOP to get serious about bonding. We urge their constituents to contact them and demand this unfinished work get done.

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Post-Bulletin, March 31

UND sends wrong message on women’s athletics

Title IX became law in 1972, and since then it has opened doors for millions of female athletes, ranging from middle schoolers to professionals at the highest levels. Girls growing up today have opportunities to compete in a greater variety of sports than at any time in history.

Among the many amazing success stories that have resulted from Title IX is the University of North Dakota’s women’s hockey team, which has been around for just 15 years. In that time, it has produced 12 Olympians, including eight who played in the 2014 Games. When the 2018 Winter Games open in Pyeongchang, South Korea, as many as 10 former UND women’s players could take the ice, representing at least three nations.

But this week, UND eliminated its women’s hockey program. Also getting the ax were both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs, and the men’s golf program is in danger of being cut, too. Men’s baseball already has been eliminated.

Who’s to blame? Chief among the culprits are the collapse of the North Dakota oil boom, and the state Legislature.

In 2015, lawmakers passed the state’s largest-ever two-year budget of $14.4 billion. Feeling cash-flush because oil tax revenue (despite signs that the bubble was about to burst), the Legislature also cut taxes by nearly $400 million. Within months, the oil industry began to go belly-up. Oil tax revenues dropped 70 percent from 2015 to 2016, and a projected budget surplus quickly became a $1 billion deficit.

UND is feeling the pain in the form of $6 million in mandated spending cuts for the next biennium.

Seen another way, however, we might find other culprits simply by looking in the mirror.

Title IX mandates equal opportunity, but it can’t mandate equal interest. Sports fans, men and women alike, are willing to pay borderline obscene prices to watch men play football, basketball, baseball and hockey, but relatively few fans feel the same way about women’s sports at the collegiate and professional levels.

Case in point? The UND men’s hockey team drew an average of 11,500 fans to its home games this year, many of whom paid $49 or more for a ticket. The women’s team, playing in the same arena, averaged 808 fans per game. The highest-price ticket was $7, and a season ticket could be had for $60.

That’s a huge problem. The UND women’s hockey program cost the state a little more than $2 million in 2016, including scholarships, travel, coaches’ salaries, etc., yet generated revenue of less than $60,000. So, when the university looked for places to cut costs, the women’s hockey program was an obvious target - as were other revenue-negative sports.

This isn’t just a North Dakota phenomenon. As proud as Minnesota is to claim its unofficial “State of Hockey” status, the U of M women’s hockey team lost $1.5 million last year, while the men’s team turned a profit of more than $3 million. So, if our state’s financial fortunes suddenly went south … well, let’s not think about that.

The good news, if there is any, is that the women currently on the North Dakota team won’t lose their scholarships, and those who can find spots on other college teams will have the opportunity to transfer. There are 34 Division 1 women’s hockey programs across the country that will be lining for a chance to claim former UND players.

But these women shouldn’t be in this position. The university’s decision to cut one of the nation’s top women’s athletic programs sends entirely the wrong message to athletes and fans.