Dems push to let all residents buy into MinnesotaCare

 Lawmakers went to work Wednesday on a proposal to allow all residents to buy into the state-run MinnesotaCare health insurance program, not just low-income workers struggling to get by.

Democratic legislators and Gov. Tim Walz have been pushing for several years to expand MinnesotaCare into a low-cost “public option” for health insurance that would be available to everyone. Now that Democrats control both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office, expanding the program is one of their top priorities for the 2023 session.

MinnesotaCare, which dates back to 1992, is aimed at lower-income people who don’t qualify for Medicaid and don’t otherwise have access to affordable coverage. The bill, which got its first hearing Wednesday, would eliminate the current income cutoff of 200% of the federal poverty line.

The “public option” is aimed at helping people like home health care worker Tavona Johnson, of Austin, whose husband was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer in 2020. As a small-business owner, she said, he didn’t have good insurance options. Then the hospital told them to be prepared to pay up-front costs of $14,000 for each chemotherapy treatment if they didn’t find coverage.

Johnson said at a news conference that they were finally able to find a plan through the state-run MNsure health insurance exchange, but the premiums were “astronomical” at upwards of $1,300 a month, with “obscenely high” deductibles and no coverage for prescription drugs or co-payments.

“We had to drain his retirement fund just to stay afloat. And we did that for a year. We had no choice,” she said. “My husband had to have this lifesaving treatment. I couldn’t just let him die.”

Her husband passed away just over a month ago.

“The money that he saved and planned to use for us to retire together is gone. We had to use it to cover those medical costs,” she said. “The money intended for me to survive on after he was gone is no more.”

As of last July, nearly 108,000 Minnesotans were enrolled in MinnesotaCare. The bill’s chief author, House Majority Leader Jamie Long, of Minneapolis, told reporters before the hearing that he didn’t know how many more people would take advantage of an expanded option to enroll, nor did he have figures on how much money the change would cost the state.

The administration of former Gov. Mark Dayton estimated in 2017 that removing the income cap could double enrollment in MinnesotaCare. Walz’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024-25 includes nearly $21 million for expanding the program.

Officials from business and insurance groups told the House commerce committee that they were concerned about the impacts on struggling hospitals in rural areas, given that payments from public programs are often far below what commercial insurance plans pay and don’t cover the full costs of care. Those commercial plans, in effect, help subsidize patients on public plans. And those officials expressed fear that patients would switch from commercial plans to MinnesotaCare, introducing further imbalances into the system.

Rep. Tim O’Driscoll, of Sartell, the lead Republican on the committee, urged hs colleagues to “slow this down,” adding, “we have a lot of unanswered questions.”

The panel decided on a voice vote to send the bill to the next of what are expected to be several committee stops.

The federal government currently picks up most of the costs of MinnesotaCare. The state’s share is funded by taxes on health care providers and insurers, plus premiums that currently range from as low as $4 per month per person to $80. Coverage is free to those under age 21. The income cutoffs now are $29,160 for an individual or $60,000 for a family of four.

Under the proposed expansion, premiums would be on a sliding scale that the state would develop later. The state would also develop an option for businesses with under 50 employees to participate.

The change would take effect in 2026, assuming the federal government approves, and eligibility would no longer depend on immigration status. During the transition, the bill would raise state subsidies for “gold” plans purchased through the MNsure exchange for 2024 and 2025.

https://apnews.com/article/politics-health-care-costs-timothy-walz-business-56a755fcff2ccd7313e6ea5d09025fc6

Biden’s fentanyl position sparks criticism from 2 sides

 President Joe Biden’s calls in his State of the Union speech for strong criminal penalties in response to soaring deaths linked to the potent opioid fentanyl are being rebuked by harm reduction advocates who say that approach could make the problem worse, even as some in Congress jeered the comments and blamed the Democrat’s border policies for deepening the crisis.

The reactions laid bare how preventing drug deaths touches on deep political, practical and philosophical differences even in addressing an unrelenting U.S. overdose crisis connected to more than 100,000 deaths a year.

After introducing a New Hampshire father whose 20-year-old daughter died eight years ago from a fentanyl overdose, Biden laid out a grim statistic: “Fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year.”

A few lawmakers called out “It’s the border.” The voice of one, Rep. Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican, rang out clearly: “It’s your fault!”

Biden paused, smirked and went on, laying out his his approach for dealing with the crisis, including calling for inspecting more packages and cargo coming into the country.

One phrase in particular — “strong penalties to crack down on fentanyl trafficking” — drew applause in the House chamber but criticism from harm reduction advocates working to contain the crisis.

While such advocates support other aspects of Biden’s framework, their view is that handling the crisis largely as a law enforcement issue makes it worse, and that “strong penalties” could be linked to permanently listing fentanyl-related drugs in the highest tier of controlled substances. That brings higher penalties and make it harder for researchers to work with them. All fentanyl-related drugs are listed on that tier through 2024, but it’s up to Congress to decide whether to make it permanent.

“When you criminalize things, you create stigma around substances,” said Maritza Perez Medina, director of federal affairs at the Drug Policy Alliance. “If people know they’re going to get in trouble for using substances, they’re going to be reluctant to call for help.”

Harry Cullen, an organizer with the harm reduction advocacy group P.A.I.N., said efforts to control the fentanyl supply have led the emergence of other, even more dangerous substances in the drug supply, such as Xylazine, which is used as a veterinarian sedative, and nitazenes, another class of opioids.

“To double down on criminalization is not the way forward,” Cullen said.

Harm reduction advocates call for increasing availability of medication-assisted treatment and measures to prevent fatal overdoses through measures such as providing supplies to test drugs for fentanyl, and naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdoses.

Asked about disappointment from some public health advocates that Biden didn’t roll out new treatment initiatives, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that Washington “has more work to do.”

The administration has advanced some efforts more than previous governments, such as allowing more federal money to be used for naloxone and making it easier to prescribe anti-addiction medications.

Not everyone had criticism for Biden’s approach. Anne Zink, the chief medical officer of the Alaska Department of Health and president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said in a statement that she welcomes his efforts to prevent overdoses, make access to treatment equitable and disrupt fentanyl trafficking.

Among some Republicans, though, the overdose crisis is seen foremost as a border and law-enforcement issue.

Fentanyl and related synthetic opioids are potent and can be transported in small amounts. When they first began having a major impact in the U.S. about a decade ago, they were largely being produced in labs in China and shipped into the country.

Over time that has changed. Experts say most of the supply is now made in Mexico from chemicals imported from China. The drug is pressed into fake prescription pills and added to other illegal drugs. Officials say it is being brought to the U.S. mostly through legal ports of entry, eluding detection.

Some who overdose on fentanyl don’t know they’re using it. But in other cases, drug users seek it out specifically.

On Wednesday, 21 Republican state attorneys general wrote a letter to Biden and Secretary of State Andrew Blinken calling on them to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

“The same cartels who produce and traffic this dangerous chemical are also assassinating rivals and government officials, ambushing, and killing Americans at the border, and engaging in an armed insurgency against the Mexican government,” the letter said. “This dangerous terrorist activity occurring at our border will not abate unless we escalate our response.”

Last year a group of Republican AGs requested the president declare fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. No action has been taken.

Regina LaBelle, who served as acting director of the National Drug Control Policy earlier in Biden’s presidency, said the U.S. needs to deal with groups bringing fentanyl into the country. “These are transnational criminal organizations that traffic in people, fuel and drugs,” she said.

But she warned: “If you focus only on that part of the issue, you’re not doing your job.”

https://apnews.com/article/biden-addiction-and-treatment-alaska-united-states-government-state-of-the-union-address-7592deaf631e2b842607368979f3c15c

Eggs are getting less expensive—for stores, not shoppers

 Eggs are getting cheaper for retailers. For consumers, they are still expensive.

Wholesale prices of Midwest large eggs have declined to $2.81 a dozen, according to research firm Urner Barry, down nearly 50% from a record high of more than $5 a dozen in December, but higher than $1.30 a dozen in January 2022. 

Retail prices for a dozen regular eggs have stayed in the $4 range, NielsenIQ data show, and sold for $4.40 for the week ended Jan. 21.

An avian-influenza outbreak has wiped out tens of millions of egg-laying hens, pushing up egg prices in recent months. The prices of eggs rose more than any other grocery item in 2022, and some supermarkets have said they lost money on eggs for weeks last year to keep prices competitive and maintain store traffic.

"Customers are so sensitive to the price of eggs right now," said Scott Karns, chief executive of Karns Foods in Pennsylvania.

The grocer is selling large eggs for $3.39 a dozen this week after paying a wholesale price of $2.75 for them, Mr. Karns said. There is often a lag between wholesale prices—what suppliers charge—and the retail prices that consumers pay as supermarkets try to sell through the inventory they have on hand, he added.

In New York, Morton Williams Supermarkets hasn’t made major changes to egg prices but expects to lower them next week, said Steve Schwartz, director of sales and marketing at the grocery chain. The company has avoided adjusting prices prematurely and wanted to make sure decreases were here to stay, he said.

Demand typically falls after the holiday season, during which people bake more and eat warmer breakfasts. The decline has been steep this year as high prices prompted some shoppers to buy fewer eggs. U.S. retailers sold about 10% fewer eggs for the week ended Jan. 21 compared with the same period a year ago, according to data from NielsenIQ. 

Retail prices will take a while to come down as food sellers will be reluctant to bring prices down, only to increase them again if another surge in bird-flu cases occurs, said Brian Earnest, a lead animal-protein economist at agricultural lender CoBank. 

The deadliest outbreak of avian-influenza on record has devastated poultry flocks across the U.S. since February of last year, killing about 58 million birds, including more than 43 million egg-laying chickens.

The outbreak, along with higher feed, fuel and packaging costs, has helped raise egg prices since the start of last year, industry analysts said. Egg supplies are expected to remain constrained through the first three months of 2023, according to analysts from agriculture lender Rabobank. 

Egg producers are rebuilding their flocks faster than during previous outbreaks, according to the American Egg Board, which represents egg producers. Entire flocks of birds are killed after the disease has been detected to prevent the spread. 

Wendong Zhang, an agricultural economist and assistant professor at Cornell University, said the faster rebuilding of flocks will help, but prices are likely to remain higher than their historical averages as long as the bird-flu outbreak persists. 

"We could see some reduction in prices in the immediate future," he said. "If the flu comes back, we’ll have some spikes again."

Bird-flu cases in commercial flocks were tempered in January, with fewer than 500,000 total bird deaths compared with more than 5 million in December, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. However, USDA officials have said the virus will likely surge back during the spring migration season, when wild birds move across the country.

Rosemary Sifford, the USDA’s chief veterinary officer said: "We expect that they will continue to be carrying it this spring."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/eggs-getting-less-expensive-stores-not-shoppers

DOJ argues end of health emergency will terminate Title 42 immigration policy

 The Biden administration argued in a filing with the Supreme Court that its plans to rescind the COVID-19 public health emergency will likewise terminate Title 42 powers that limit migrants’ ability to seek asylum.

In the late Tuesday filing, the government criticized Republican-led states for attempting to “perpetuat[e] CDC’s public-health orders as makeshift immigration policy.”

“Absent other relevant developments, the end of the public health emergency will (among other consequences) terminate the Title 42 orders and moot this case,” the Justice Department wrote. 

“The government has also recently announced its intent to adopt new Title 8 policies to address the situation at the border once the Title 42 orders end,” it added, referring to the section of the U.S. code that lays out the standard process for removing migrants from the country.

The Biden administration last month announced it will formally revoke the public health emergency on May 11, noting that both the COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency orders were put in place by the Trump administration.

The Biden administration has a complex relationship with Title 42.

While it sought to revoke numerous other Trump-era immigration policies, it has used Title 42 broadly despite complaints from immigration advocates that it contravenes both U.S. and international laws dealing with the right to asylum.

It moved to rescind the policy last April, only to have it reinstated by lower courts amid legal challenges.

Since then, it has expanded Title 42 for use against Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraugans and Haitians, while also rolling out a program to allow citizens from the countries to apply for permission to enter the country for up to two years.

GOP-led states are seeking to intervene in a case first brought by migrants seeking to challenge the legality of Title 42. A district judge found the policy illegal and ordered the Department of Homeland Security to wind down its use by last December.

If the Supreme Court allows the states to intervene, it will likely ignite further legal challenges over the legality of the underlying policy.

Republicans have said the coming end of the public health emergency will not nullify Title 42, arguing the two policies require individual termination orders.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3849235-doj-argues-end-of-health-emergency-will-terminate-title-42-immigration-policy/

21 states call on Biden to label Mexican drug cartels terrorist organizations

 The attorneys general for 21 states sent a letter to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday to ask the administration to declare Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations. 

The officials noted drug overdoses have killed more than 100,000 Americans in the past year, and almost two-thirds of them were related to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. They cited the Drug Enforcement Administration in saying that Mexican drug cartels are importing raw materials from China, using them to produce opioids at a low cost and illegally transporting those illicit drugs into the United States. 

But the Republican attorneys general said the cartels threaten U.S. national security beyond the drugs themselves, having created armed forces to protect their trade from rival cartels and the Mexican government. 

“The existence of such forces just across our southwestern land border, and the Mexican government’s inability to control them, pose a threat to our national security far greater than a typical drug-trafficking enterprise,” they said. 

The signers, led by Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R), said the cartels also have connections to foreign terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group. 

They said cartels are assassinating government officials and rivals, killing Americans at the southern border and taking part in an armed insurgency against the Mexican government. 

They said said designating these groups as terrorist organizations will grant state and federal law enforcement agencies increased authority to freeze cartel assets, deny members entry to the United States and give prosecutors the ability to press for tougher punishments against those supporting the cartels. 

Current efforts to push back against the spread of narcotics are insufficient, they argued. 

“The cartels’ intense violence goes far beyond mere resistance to interference with their drug trafficking and now encompasses a general effort to intimidate rivals and expand their influence,” they said. “This violence, which necessarily involves using firearms and explosives to kill security forces, plainly constitutes terrorist activity.” 

The letter comes after Biden noted in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that authorities have seized more than 23,000 pounds of fentanyl in the past several months. He called on Congress to start a “major surge” to prevent the production, sale and trafficking of fentanyl that will include more drug detection machines to conduct inspections at the southern border. 

One controversial moment during the speech came when Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) yelled out, “It’s your fault” to Biden after the president mentioned immigration and fentanyl.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/3849600-21-states-call-on-biden-to-label-mexican-drug-cartels-terrorist-organizations/

'Chinese spy balloon part of larger surveillance program': US intel

 The U.S. intelligence community has found that the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday is connected to a larger surveillance program run by Beijing’s government, the Pentagon’s top spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.  

Along with the balloon that traversed U.S. airspace last week, the Defense Department is aware of at least four previous balloons that have flown over U.S. territory, press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters.  

“This is what we assess as part of a larger Chinese surveillance balloon program,” Ryder said. “This is a program that’s been operated for several years.” 

The Washington Post first reported on Tuesday that American intelligence agencies linked the Chinese balloon to a wide-reaching surveillance program run by the People’s Liberation Army and operating partly out of Hainan province off the country’s south coast. 

And on Saturday, senior Pentagon officials hinted at a larger Chinese high altitude surveillance program, pointing to another balloon that was observed transiting Central and South America. 

“These balloons are all part of a PRC fleet of balloons developed to conduct surveillance operations, which have also violated the sovereignty of other countries,” one senior defense official told reporters. “These kinds of activities are often undertaken at the direction of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).”  

The official also confirmed that Washington has been briefing allies and partners who have also been the target of such surveillance.  

Ryder on Wednesday said the airships have been seen over five continents and regions including North America, South America, Europe, and southeast and east Asia. 

Several U.S. officials told the Post that the surveillance effort has collected intel on military assets in countries of strategic interest to China including Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines.  

In the case of the latest balloon, Beijing was looking to “surveil strategic sites to include some of our strategic bases in the continental United States,” Ryder said.  

The Chinese spy balloon has set off a torrent of questions as to how often such flying objects have made their way over U.S. territory and what intelligence the airships have been able to gather.  

At least four balloons have been tracked over Hawaii, Florida, Texas and Guam prior to the one spotted last week, with three such cases happening during the Trump administration. 

In some instances, after a spy balloon had left U.S. airspace, subsequent intelligence analysis led officials to realize the previously unidentified aerial object belonged to the Chinese, Ryder said. 

The balloons, which are not seen as a particularly high-tech mode of spying, do have advantages over satellites as they can fly closer to earth and are not as easily detected by radars. They can also stay longer over a site, as was seen last week.  

Republican lawmakers and some Democrats have since criticized the Biden administration for failing to shoot down the balloon sooner, though the Pentagon has stressed that national security was protected as the object flew over the country for a week before it was shot down.

Ryder said the long period with which the balloon traversed the country allowed the U.S. military to gain more information on the Chinese surveillance program and “apply that information to increase our ability to track these kinds of objects” and defend the skies.  

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3850024-chinese-spy-balloon-part-of-larger-surveillance-program-us-intel/

Jordan requests communications between Biden administration, social media companies

 Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee are requesting documents that include communications between the Biden administration and social media companies as part of the panel’s investigation into what the GOP says were efforts to “suppress free speech and censor content online.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday penned a letter to Brian Boynton, the principal deputy assistant attorney general in the civil division, requesting that the Justice Department turn over documents that it provided in an earlier lawsuit filed by GOP-led states involving purported free speech violations.

The Hill obtained a copy of the letter, which requests that the materials are handed over by Feb. 22.

“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the Executive Branch’s efforts to sidestep the First Amendment by coercing and coordinating with private companies, including social media platforms, to suppress free speech and censor content online,” Jordan wrote. 

“As part of our oversight, we write to request a discrete set of documents and information that the Department of Justice has produced as part of discovery in federal litigation over the same subject matter,” he added.

The attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri filed a lawsuit against President Biden and other administration officials in May for “allegedly working” with social media companies — including Meta, Twitter and Youtube — to censor and suppress free speech on topics such as COVID-19 and election integrity.

The lawsuit — brought by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) and then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R) — named Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Heath and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, among others. It lists a number of stories the Republicans say were suppressed on social media, including the Hunter Biden laptop story and information about the origins of COVID-19.

Last month, Landry released a thread of emails from April 2021 between White House employees and Facebook discussing a video posted by Fox News’s Tucker Carlson that, according to Landry, criticized the COVID-19 vaccine. In the communications, then-White House coronavirus response coordinator Andy Slavitt asked about Carlson’s video, and White House director of digital strategy Rob Flaherty questioned why it did not violate the platform’s regulations.

Landry zeroed in on an email from a Facebook representative, whose email address is redacted, that said, “The video received 50% demotion for seven days while in the queue to be fact checked, and will continue to be demoted even though it was not ultimately fact checked.”

Jordan is now requesting that the Justice Department produce the documents it has provided in the Missouri and Louisiana litigation.

“These documents appear to reveal that the Executive Branch repeatedly pressured social media platforms to censor certain viewpoints,” Jordan wrote. “Congress has an important interest in protecting and advancing fundamental free speech principles, including by examining how the Executive Branch coordinates with or coerces private actors to suppress First Amendment-protected speech.”

“As Congress continues to examine how to best protect Americans’ fundamental freedoms, the documents discovered and produced during the Missouri v. Biden litigation are necessary to assist Congress in understanding the problem and evaluating potential legislative reforms,” he added.

The Hill reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

Jordan’s letter is the latest example of increased scrutiny House Republicans are placing on the suppression of information on social media platforms. On Wednesday, the same day Jordan sent his letter, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee held a hearing that looked into Twitter’s decisions regarding a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden. Former Twitter executives testified at the hearing.

It comes after Republicans have claimed that the social media company suppressed circulation of the story for political purposes in the weeks leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3849581-jim-jordan-requests-communications-between-biden-administration-social-media-companies/