Category Archives: Post type

One of the defining features of American political culture is our commitment to individualism. We are individualists in at least two senses of the word. First, we support the rights of individuals. We believe that there are some rights that belong to individuals that no government or other entity has a right to infringe upon. We are also individualists, secondly, in that Americans are more likely than people in other countries to explain social problems in terms of individual behavior. We prefer explanations that focus on individual behaviors rather than social structures and institutions that largely determine options and influence outcomes.

Nowhere is this preference for individual explanations for the causes of social problems more evident than in American rhetoric about poverty and economic success. Jeb Bush’s remarks in New Hampshire are an excellent example. At a campaign stop, Bush said:

My aspiration for the country — and I believe we can achieve it — is 4 percent growth as far as the eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, work-force participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows, means that people need to work longer hours and through their productivity gain more income for their families.… Continue reading »

Hundreds of workers marched from the US Bancorp Center to Minneapolis City Hall Wednesday, calling on the City Council to support a citywide $15 minimum wage and guarantee workers paid sick time, fair scheduling and increased protection against wage theft.

The march and rally was organized by members of NOC,(link is external)Neighborhoods Organizing for Change; CTUL(link is external), Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha/Center of Workers United in Struggle; 15Now MN(link is external) and Working America(link is external), a community affiliate of the AFL-CIO. NOC members led the march with a group of drummers and dancers as hundreds of workers and advocates followed through the downtown Minneapolis streets.

At the steps of city hall, Anthony Newby, executive director of NOC, spoke about a recent NOC study that surveyed more than 500 workers in north Minneapolis.

Click here for the rest of the article. … Continue reading »

Hundreds of hourly wage workers and advocates marched through downtown Minneapolis and to City Hall on Wednesday, urging the city to adopt laws that would mandate paid sick leave, more predictable scheduling and a higher minimum wage.

Marchers with Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha (CTUL) and other workers’ groups gathered on the steps of City Hall, where a handful of people shared stories and organizers unveiled the results of a recent study of north Minneapolis workers.

The speakers told of working for low wages, often while sick or running on little sleep after working late-night and early-morning shifts, back to back.

Rod Adams, a former employee of two restaurants, said he was ordered to keep working at one after he suffered a serious injury from a kitchen knife, and was often required to work closing hours followed by opening hours at the second business.

“Why should you have to work two or three jobs?” he said. “Why should you miss out on time for school? Why should you miss out on time with your family?”

Anthony Newby, executive director of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, said a recent study his group did of more than 500 workers on the North Side revealed that many face similar challenges.… Continue reading »

Health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs for thousands of people on low-incomes will increase because of cuts to MinnesotaCare that were approved this week.

Although a GOP-led attempt to repeal MinnesotaCare didn’t make it through the latest legislative session, the Health and Human Services budget bill that was signed on Friday by Gov. Mark Dayton does feature cuts that will mean price increases for workers using the subsidized health program.

The Minnesota Budget Project says that the bill requires the program to generate an extra $65 million in the 2016/17 two-year budget cycle and $96 million in the 2018/19 cycle – through premium increases and a hike in out-of-pocket expenses borne by service users.

Minnesota’s Department of Human Services told BringMeTheNews that the actual price changes won’t be decided until June 30, but did provide information that indicated they could potentially add hundreds of dollars to family budgets starting Aug. 1.

The changes will affect people on MinnesotaCare who earn between 150 and 200 percent of Federal Poverty Guidelines (FPG), which ranges from a household income of $17,505 for a single person, to $80,180 for a household of eight people.

In an example supplied by the DHS showing how premiums could increase (which comes from sample figures and is not a prediction), someone earning between 150 and 159 percent of FPG would see a $7 increase on their monthly premium– a rise of around a quarter on what they’re paying now.… Continue reading »

Hike requests come after insurers lost $300M on policies for individuals.

Big premium increases that Minnesota insurers proposed last week reflect losses they’ve been taking in a part of the market targeted by the federal health law.

Insurers say they collectively lost more than $300 million on policies for individuals who buy coverage on their own last year because subscribers had more costly health problems than expected.Higher rates on that coverage would help close the gap, though the size of the increases will attract attention amid scrutiny of the effects of the Affordable Care Act. If regulators were to approve the full amounts, average premiums would increase by more than 50 percent for about 179,000 people, and by more than 10 percent for another 60,000.

Insurers say they are making adjustments now that they have more experience under the health care law, which will cover a chunk of first-year losses.

“This just shows the volatility that we’re experiencing in the first few years of the Affordable Care Act,” said Lynn Blewett, a health policy expert at the University of Minnesota. “Eventually, it will work itself out into a more stable market.”

• Health insurers want large premium increases in Minnesota

Observers say the proposed increases are driven largely by factors that are unique to the individual market, and don’t point to similar jumps for employer groups and government programs that cover roughly 90 percent of Minnesotans.… Continue reading »

Until very recently, the political cultures of Minnesota and Wisconsin seemed pretty much in step. In the 1930s, both Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor Party and the Progressive Party of Wisconsin anticipated the New Deal with their own brands of progressive populism. After World War II, both states shifted to the right as Farmer-Labor joined the Democrats and Wisconsin, more drastically, traded Fighting Bob La Follette for Joseph McCarthy in the Senate. Yet by the following decade, senators like Wisconsin’s Gaylord Nelson and Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey led the charge in Washington, D.C., for environmental protection, civil rights, and an expanded social safety net.

Since then, both states have become reliably blue strongholds in federal races and each has had about the same number of Republicans and Democrats in the governor’s office. The two states’ progressive streak in Congress has been kept very much alive by the careers of Senators Paul Wellstone and Russ Feingold, and more recently, Al Franken and Tammy Baldwin.

But in the past few years, the states’ political pathways have started to diverge—sharply. While Minnesota has once again become a progressive laboratory under Governor Mark Dayton, passing landmark legislation on marriage equality, minimum wage, and progressive taxes, Wisconsin has veered in the opposite direction.… Continue reading »

House Republicans put a health care program for tens of thousands of low-income Minnesotans on the chopping block Tuesday as the centerpiece of a budget bill that aims to put up half of the $2 billion in tax relief GOP lawmakers hope to offer.

The House was debating a bill Tuesday night for Minnesota’s health and human services spending — the largest slice of the state’s $40 billion budget. A vote wasn’t expected until later in the night.

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A group of about 20 protesters gathered outside the House chambers to call on lawmaker to keep MinnesotaCare in place. Even with additional tax credits, enrollees would likely face much higher out-of-pocket costs, said Liz Doyle with TakeAction Minnesota, a coalition of unions and advocacy groups.

Click here for the full article.… Continue reading »

On a beautiful spring morning, Ricardo Chavez spent a little of his free time to speak out for some fellow janitors that he has never met.

“We have a union,” said Chavez. “We have paid benefits, but my brothers cleaning the Best Buy store next door don’t have these benefits.”

Chavez, who came from El Salvador in 1988, works in the company’s Richfield headquarters, where he cleans offices. The cleaning company he works for pays higher wages and benefits, but cleaners at the company’s stores are paid substantially less and have no benefits, he said.

There are bills now moving through the Legislature that would change that by mandating such benefits as earned paid sick time and family leave.

Activists chose to demonstrate in front of Best Buy Tuesday because the company is an influential member of the Minnesota Retailers Association, which has been lobbying the Legislature and trying to stop the bills that would help millions of Minnesota workers. The MRA is taking it a step further by pushing a bill that would prohibit local governments from enacting wage or benefit laws, something that has been discussed in Minneapolis.

Yep, those are the same people who usually scream for local control.… Continue reading »

Days after saying they want to cut taxes and still spend money on key priorities, a key Republican in the Minnesota House is floating a proposal to end a popular health care program for Minnesota’s working poor.

Pressured by their own party to return a $1.9 billion budget surplus to taxpayers, GOP leaders are looking for ways to do that while pursuing their agenda.

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Liz Doyle, associate director of TakeAction Minnesota, a non-profit group that supports public health care programs, said Dean’s plan would be bad for MinnesotaCare participants. It would land them in more expensive and potentially less comprehensive coverage, she said.

“Our concern is that it would end the guarantee of affordable coverage that MinnesotaCare currently provides and subject low-income working families to potentially much higher health care costs on the private market,” Doyle said.

TakeAction Minnesota played a big role in making MinnesotaCare the state’s so-called basic health plan under the Affordable Care Act. Aside from some benefit improvements and adding more people to the program, incorporating MinnesotaCare in the state’s implementation of the law effectively allowed Minnesota to tap some federal money to help pay for it.

Click here for the full article.… Continue reading »

Lawmakers agree that something needs to be done, but there is no clear path to fixing the troubled exchange.

A leading Republican in the GOP-controlled House thinks the state should alter MinnesotaCare, drop MNsure and jump to the federal government’s HealthCare.gov website.

Meanwhile, over in the DFL-controlled Senate, a proposal to eliminate the MNsure board is moving forward, with a top Democrat questioning a recent board decision to prioritize what he calls “bells and whistles” for the exchange website.

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Dean is not the first to put forward the MinnesotaCare idea, which could help MNsure financially by expanding the number people buying on the exchange.

But Greta Bergstrom of TakeAction Minnesota said her group strongly opposes Dean’s bill, because MinnesotaCare has worked well for decades. TakeAction Minnesota was influential with DFL lawmakers in pushing to create MNsure, but the group questions whether people with incomes low enough for MinnesotaCare would find quality coverage from private insurers that’s affordable.

“It’s a program … that’s worked effectively for two decades, and really is a legacy program for the state of Minnesota,” Bergstrom said. Of Dean’s proposal, she said: “We don’t think it would work.”

Click here for the full article.… Continue reading »