November 24, 2008 - DFL U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar will convene national health care leaders for a summit in Minneapolis. Klobuchar says she organized the event to give industry leaders an opportunity to discuss ways to strengthen America's health care system, including Medicare. She says the goal of the summit is to examine how to offer quality healthcare at an affordable price.
November 24, 2008 - MPR’s Elizabeth Baier reports on DFL U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar holding meeting with national health care leaders for a summit in Minneapolis. Klobuchar says she organized the event to give industry leaders an opportunity to discuss ways to strengthen America's health care system, including Medicare. She says the goal of the summit is to examine how to offer quality healthcare at an affordable price.
December 11, 2008 - In selecting Tom Daschle to be his health and human services secretary, President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday that he wanted Mr. Daschle, a former South Dakota senator, to pursue something that had eluded federal officials for decades: securing affordable, accessible health care for every single American. Whether Mr. Daschle, a former Senate majority leader, can succeed where others failed is unclear. Year after year, Mr. Obama said, "our leaders offer up detailed health care plans with great fanfare and promise, only to see them fail, derailed by Washington politics and influence peddling." Even Mr. Daschle, who will also be director of a new White House Office of Health Reform, acknowledges that the task will be difficult. In a recent book, he portrays the health care industry as a collection of special interests and predicts they will wage all-out war to defeat reform. Mr. Obama said Mr. Daschle, as head of the new office, would be the lead architect of proposals to expand coverage and rein in health costs.
December 29, 2008 - An initiative to make northwestern Minnesota hospitals more efficient is spreading across the state. It's called Lean Health and it uses the same ideas companies like Marvin Windows and Arctic Cat use to streamline assembly line production. Those companies are trying to encourage hospitals to use the same ideas. Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Gunderson visited one hospital where the assembly line efficiency model is working for healthcare.
January 1, 2009 - MPR’s Curtis Gilbert spends a day at the Minnesota State Fair to gorge on varied food offerings to see how the fried and caloric intake may impact the body. It leads to surprising and unsurprising results.
January 8, 2009 - MPR’s Tom Crann interviews R.T. Rybak, Mayor of Minneapolis about President-elect Obama economic speech. In his speech today, President-elect Obama also recognized the budget problems local governments are facing these days. Here in Minnesota, the Governor and the legislature are working to close a 4.8-billion-dollar budget shortfall. And, that has meant less aid money for cities and counties. The president-elect tried to offer local leaders some words of hope.
March 4, 2009 - Healthcare is one of the fastest-growing costs for Minnesota government. Governor Tim Pawlenty says it's critical to slow the growth in healthcare spending. He wants to reduce the cost of Minnesota Care, the state-funded insurance program. He's also proposing cuts to medicaid reimbursements. This week, Minnesota Public Radio is exploring the effects of the state budget crisis from the perspective of one community, Fergus Falls. It's the largest city in Otter Tail County. This is the latest installment in our series, "The State Budget in Your Backyard." As Dan Gunderson reports, balancing the state budget could mean big changes for the people covered by Minnesota Care and the hospitals that treat them.
March 12, 2009 - MPR’s Lorna Benson reports on Minnesota's sudden infant deaths, and how investigators are now learning that unsafe sleeping arrangements are fairly common with these deaths.
May 18, 2009 - Minnesota's safety net hospitals are sifting through their options after Governor Pawlenty eliminated public insurance coverage for up to 35,000 of the state's poorest adults to balance the budget. The cuts don't take effect until the middle of 2010. But hospitals say they will have to start making some tough decisions now to make up for the expected *reductions*. Minnesota Public Radio's Lorna Benson reports. {
June 18, 2009 - MPR medical commentator Dr. Jon Hallberg stops by Midday to discuss medical and health issues currently in the news. Hallberg is a family practice physician at Mill City Clinic, and assistant professor of family medicine at University of Minnesota. Topics include health care law and quality care.