April 1, 1998 -
March 24, 1998 - Congress is considering a bill that would require many health insurers to expand their coverage of alcohol and drug addiction programs. The bill is co-sponsored by Minnesota's Republican Congressman Jim Ramstad and Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone. It's intended to force insurers to treat addiction as they would any other disease. We talk to Congressman Ramstad.
March 24, 1998 - Minnesota Public Radio announced yesterday that it's selling its for-profit catalog company to the Dayton Hudson corporation for 120 million dollars. About 90 million dollars in proceeds from the sale are expected to go into MPR's endowment... which would make it the largest in all of public broadcasting. Tom Thomas is with the Station Resource Group, an Washington D.C.-based organization of public radio stations from around the country. He says endowments are a relatively new development in public radio.
March 19, 1998 - For years, senior citizens enrolled in HMOs in Minnesota have received fewer Medicare benefits than their peers in other states. That's because Medicare's funding formula dictated lower payments in places like Minnesota that were cutting health care costs and higher payments in places like Florida that had high health care costs. Last year, Congress tried to fix the problem but the disparities have only gotten worse. Now lawmakers are taking another shot. We talk to 2nd District Congressman David Minge about the problem.
March 19, 1998 - State funding for a new Saint Paul hockey arena could be in jeopardy because of questions surrounding a deal between the Minnesota Wild Hockey Team and the company it chose to oversee construction of the arena. The team awarded the construction contract to Minneapolis -based M.A. Mortensen after the company paid the team's 100-thousand dollar NHL initiation fee. We get an update from John Knapp who lobbies on behalf of the Minnesota Business Partnership at the state legislature.
March 18, 1998 - Governor Carlson says he supports spending 50 million dollars in state money on a light rail transit line between downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of the America with a stop at the Twin Cities Airport. Earlier this week, the Metropolitan Airports Commission voted to spend 150 million dollars for new parking ramps, road improvements and a skyway connection between two airport concourses. This is just a small part of a 1.7 billion dollar airport expansion project that is designed to accommodate growth in airport traffic through the year 2010. After that, another billion dollars may have to be spent on a brand new terminal. John Himle sits on the airports commission.
March 16, 1998 - Martin Kaste previews the week ahead at the Capitol.
March 6, 1998 - Grain farmers in the Red River Valley are facing an economic crisis that's been years in the making. Disease, pests and five straight seasons of wet weather have devastated crops. Falling prices have left some farmers without enough cash on hand to even plant this year. Lawmakers will be in Northwestern Minnesota tomorrow to discuss the problem. Curt Nyegaard is an extension educator in Kittson County. He blames the crisis in part on 1980s farm policy which made it hard to rotate crops and required farmers to leave crop residue on their land after harvest to stem erosion. Such practices fostered the spread of crop disease.
March 6, 1998 - Beads, broken glass, stones, bottle caps...not what you usually think of when you think of art. But these ordinary objects have been transformed into colorful, extraordinary sculptures and paintings by midwestern folk artists and are on display at The Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson Wisconsin. There's a six-foot tall replica of syrup-huckster Mrs. Butterworth, a chandelier made of bottle caps and creatures of concrete decorated with broken china. The show "Passionate Obsessions" was curated by Loris Connolly who took us on a tour of the exhibit.
March 5, 1998 - Minnesota has begun penalizing welfare recipients who fail to comply with the state's new welfare law. This month, about 950 parents had their welfare checks reduced. But that's a small portion of the total number of people enrolled in the Minnesota Family Investment Program. Out of some 32-thousand cases, only 2.4 percent had their checks cut by 10 percent. Half a percent had their checks cut 30 percent. Deborah Huskins is assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services.; Minnesota has begun penalizing welfare recipients who fail to comply with the state's new welfare law. This month, about 950 parents had their welfare checks reduced. But that's a small portion of the total number of people enrolled in the Minnesota Family Investment Program. Out of some 32-thousand cases, only 2.4 percent had their checks cut by 10 percent. Half a percent had their checks cut 30 percent. Deborah Huskins is assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Services.