Citizens vent at Economic Summit

Summit addresses issues facing Minnesotans

By FRITZ BUSCH Journal Staff Writer
MANKATO — Several Southern Minnesota citizens offered some candid answers to economic and health care issues Monday at an Economic Summit hosted by Democratic Congressman Tim Walz at the Alltel Convention Center.

Keith Keogh, a retired used car salesman and bar owner of St. Peter spoke to a Consumer Perspective panel during a public forum.

“I’m an Irishman that went through two wars and I know what’s going on,” said Keogh.

“In the middle 1980s, most cars got better MPG than they do now. Automakers just shoved (less-efficient cars) down our throats. There’s no gas shortage either. Too many people are ripping us off,” Keogh added.

Regarding rising health care costs, he said “private insurance companies are killing us.”

Paul Munnis, an International Business Machines (IBM) retiree from Rochester said cooperatives (non-profit organizations designed to redistribute profits) could reduce U.S. health insurance costs by a third.

He added that electronically updated college text books and online schools could help reduce college costs.

“Raising wages would lead us out of inflation,” said Munnis.

In his welcome speech, Walz said the U.S. economy put speculation over economic development in recent years.

People did it first in real estate, then they moved on to energy and oil,” said Walz.

He praised collaborative programs like the Hormel Institute in Austin that promotes scientific research and education with medicinal applications.

Teaming the Hormel Foundation with the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic, the Institute uses chemistry and bioscience to investigate cancer prevention, treatments and cures while adding jobs, including 100 doctoral positions in Austin, according to Walz.

“There are many reasons to be optimistic about this,” Walz said.

State Demographer Tom Gillaspy said India firms are investing in Minnesota.

State Economist Tom Stinson said there is a decade or more lag between research and development and economic outcomes because technology changes so fast.

Former Congressman Tim Penny, now CEO and president of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation said Perkins Grants promote activities that integrate academic, vocational and technical instruction for high school and post-high school vocational programs.

“Research like Mayo Medical Ventures, the Hormel Research Institute, University of Minnesota, and the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI) at Waseca lead us to new technology like natural pharmaceuticals from food we grow,” said Penny.

Minnesota State University, Mankato Student Body President Ryan Anderson said he rides his bike to school as a way to deal with rising college costs.

Several citizens talked about other people who died or suffered permanent ailments after putting off seeing doctors when they were ill because they couldn’t afford medical care.

Phil Stalboerger, Vice President, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, said everyone should have universal health coverage.

“The devil is in the details,” said Stalboerger.

Panelists agreed health care requires higher taxes, as it does in other countries.

Kip Sullivan, a health system analyst for the Greater Minnesota Health Care Coalition, said health care costs must fall before Minnesota converts to a single-payer system or there will be a train wreck.

“It’s a complex problem, but there are too many medical services, over-insured people, and not enough smoking and obesity prevention programs,” said Sullivan.

“Health care is an inefficient industry with administrative and marketing costs way out of control,” he added.

Sullivan said too much time and money are spent on medical and educational (institutional) report cards that don’t compare apples to apples and won’t solve problems.

“No patient left behind report cards aren’t ready for prime time,” Sullivan said.

Erin Sexton, Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Vice President of Governmental Affairs, said health care information systems need to interact with each other to reduce duplication.

“We have skewed health care incentives for doctors, nurses are over-extended and too much money goes to specialized services,” Sexton said.

She added that without higher taxes, Medicare funds will be gone by 2019.

Other panels discussed investing in early childhood education, aligning work force training with regional business trends and exploring emerging industry clusters.

(Fritz Busch can be e-mailed at busch@nujournal.com'>busch@nujournal.com).