Published: Jan 2024, Faribault Daily News & Lonsdale Area News-Review
Published: Feb 2024, Northfield News
For 60 years, I’ve looked into my mother’s loving eyes. But now those eyes don’t even know who I am. Like many families, we face the challenges of long-term care and the hefty price tag.
According to Genworth Financial, the median cost of long-term care in Minnesota is about $9,000/month, and the average stay is 2.7 and 3.7 years for men and women, respectively.
There are multiple causes for this sticker shock: complexity of medical care, people living longer, baby boomers aging, regulations, government reimbursement rates, labor shortages, and inflation.
Seniors with sufficient resources for retirement are “private pay.” Seniors with limited assets and income are eligible for Minnesota’s Medical Assistance (Medicaid). Those in the middle get squeezed and wonder if they will outlive their money, being told, “Don’t worry. The state will take care of you.”
However, a facility accepting Medicaid doesn’t indicate the number of Medicaid beds available. In the U.S., 80-90% of the nursing homes accepted Medicaid in 2023. For facilities that accept Medical Assistance, the Minnesota-determined Medicaid rates cover about 80% of the cost of care. This underpayment forces private pay seniors to absorb higher rates at assisted living facilities.
The Minnesota Rate Equalization Law requiring Medicaid and private pay rates to be the same adds up to financial losses for nursing homes.
The Department of Human Services determines Minnesota’s reimbursement rates by surveying facilities. There is at least a 15-month lag between costs accrued and rates published. Therefore, 2024 facility rates are based on 2022 costs. As inflation accelerates, facilities keep falling financially behind.
This patchwork of elder care started in 1965 during the enactment of Medicare for hospital services. Over time, federal and state governments developed nursing home licensing and regulations to comply with ever-changing laws.
During the 1980s, assisted living facilities grew from the private sector’s demand for elder care in residential settings. Eventually, the federal government granted exemptions to Medicaid called “elderly waivers” for non-nursing home services.
This history of laws and regulations has made nursing homes the second-most-regulated industry, nosing out nuclear power plants.
Safe, adequate, and dignified care for ourselves and our loved ones is the goal, but a crisis is looming. By 2030, all baby boomers will be over 65 — more than 20% of the population. The U.S. government predicts this age group has a nearly 70% chance of needing long-term care services.
COVID-era policies accelerated labor shortages, causing beds to be emptied, reducing facilities’ revenue, and forcing closures even as waitlists lengthened. Minnesota’s new Earned Sick and Safe Time law reduces staffing flexibility and lessens staff’s accountability, leaving facilities struggling to stay open.
To pass the 2023 DFL bonding bill, Republicans pushed for a $300 million emergency assistance agreement to relieve some financial pressure on nursing homes. That effort will be countered by an endless push for more government programs and increased regulations funded by taxing a shrinking workforce already struggling to provide for their families and futures.
As my mother approaches her 93rd birthday, I am comforted by the excellent care she receives, but I ponder what the future holds for our golden years.
TOPPublished: Dec 2023, Faribault Daily News
Published: Jan 2024, Lonsdale Area News-Review
Facing financial pressure, Charles Dickens wrote “The Christmas Carol” in six weeks. As this holiday season launches, we’re probably mindful of the inflationary struggles facing our own families.
Inflation is at a 40-year high. Last month the government reported that the consumer price index soared to 7.7% over October 2021. The $1 in your pocket in 2021 now needs to be about $1.08 to buy the very same products. Did you get an 8% raise this year? If not, you lost purchasing power — nearly a month’s income compared to 2021.
Discussions of inflation always center on the classic definition: “Too many dollars chasing too few goods.” But what does that definition really mean?
When government “stimulates” the economy with aggressive spending, they push dollars into the economy. People have more money to spend, so they stimulate demand — they buy stuff.
For example, you and your neighbors receive money from the government: a $1,400 stimulus check, an increased child tax credit, trickle-down from aid to local governments, your share of the $1.9 million COVID-19 relief package, or a “green” subsidy from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The additional dollars in everyone’s pockets fuel decisions to purchase the same product. The surge in demand for the product leaves the supplier unable to satisfy (meet the demand of) all willing buyers. With government monies in hand, buyers are willing to pay higher and higher prices until someone “wins” the bidding war.
To meet the surge in product demands, the supplier may respond by hiring more labor or paying overtime or by arranging expedited shipping — in each case, incurring higher costs to get goods into production and into consumers’ hands more quickly. Suppliers aren’t Scrooges, but they invariably pass those increased costs along to us, the buyers. Thus, we experience inflation.
Supporters of the current administration’s record-breaking spending argue that the record-breaking inflation we now face stems from a perfect storm — the U.S. COVID-19 policy of shutting down the economy, increasing demand as the economy started moving again, and breakdowns in the supply chain caused by COVID-19 response-related disruptions.
To counter the fiscal policy missteps of aggressive spending and taxation, the Federal Reserve had to play Scrooge, tapping the economy’s brakes with its sixth consecutive interest rate hike, pushing borrowing costs to a new high since 2008.
More Fed interest rate hikes loom, bringing along the risk of tipping into recession an economy already roiling from an ongoing labor shortage, historically low workforce participation, and business closings.
We all feel the consequences of inflation-producing fiscal policy. The American Farm Bureau Federation reports that this year’s Thanksgiving dinner would cost us 20% more. While inflation erodes everyone’s purchasing power, it’s especially hard on the poor and those on fixed incomes, who will struggle to purchase necessities: eggs are up 43%, butter up 34%, health insurance up 21%, and energy up 18% year over year.
For all our economic woes, Americans celebrate this special time of the year, heeding the advice of Bob Cratchit — to be thankful for our many blessings — even though they’ll cost us more.
TOPPublished: Nov 2023, Faribault Daily News, Northfield News, & Lonsdale Area News-Review
The story, Rip Van Winkle, describes an easygoing man who sleeps 20 years only to awaken and find his world drastically changed. As social and cultural changes quickly advance, we may feel like Rip Van Wrinkle. These changes have been brewing for some time, and the impact they exert on businesses and society is often attributed to ESG.
The financial rating system, ESG, (Environmental, Social, and Governance) is an acronym introduced by the UN in 2006. The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab embraces ESG and endorses the 1932 management theory, “stakeholder capitalism”. This theory doesn’t look at the traditional business model of increasing shareholders’ profit or loss but focuses on what they view as the best interest of society. Companies and their investors consider how to manage business risks and opportunities related to the three ESG criteria.
As of 2020, nearly 600 corporate ESG ratings exist that evaluate companies. Measurement examples include adherence to climate change policies, transitioning to lab-grown meat (environmental), positions on political issues (social), and board appointments based on race or sex (governance). These examples highlight the biased scoring methods that allow management firms like Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard, who combined own 88% of the S&P, to impose ESG on the world’s largest corporations. They can threaten corporations with stock sell-offs, proxy fights, and loss of funding. Their coercion has proven effective, as companies like Anheuser-Busch, Target, Walt Disney, Coca-Cola, and Apple force progressive policies on consumers.
What if the ESG corporate rating model is applied to individuals? A personal ESG score may impact getting a mortgage, opening a bank account, etc. Sound crazy?
"Doug Craddock, an officer of FICO, the most widely used service to check the creditworthiness of individuals and small businesses, wrote, “Over the longer term, we expect ESG and climate risk evaluations will become an integral element of credit risk and affordability assessments”
Corporations are spending substantial amounts of time and money developing their ESG score. Large financial banks are producing ESG scores without individuals’ and small businesses’ knowledge. For instance, Merrill Lynch provides a personal ESG score on an investor’s dashboard. Moody’s created an ESG Score Predictor that offers ESG reports for over 100,000 “unscored” businesses.
This social movement by corporations isn’t based on a ground swell of consumer support or demands but on the manipulation of financial markets by large elite non-governmental organizations controlling our economic system using ESG as the driving vehicle. This has led state governing bodies to pass laws protecting consumers, their investments, and pension funds. For example, a Missouri securities rule requires broker-dealers to obtain customer consent to purchase or sell an investment product based on social or other nonfinancial objectives, such as ESG factors.
As the consumer and state governments awake from their slumber, the supporters of ESG are concerned by the consumer backlash. Even though the ESG supporters are working to repackage their socialist collective model, generations of Americans are reasserting their power in the market by denting the corporate bottom line.
TOPPublished: April 2023, Faribault Daily News
People often romanticize “county life” but it's serious business. Minnesota has 67,100 farm operations producing nearly $19 billion of crops on just over 25 million acres of cropland.
But who owns this land?
The 2022 purchase of 370 acres of farmland in Grand Forks, ND - 15 miles from an air base - heightened concerns about foreign land ownership. To address these nationwide concerns various Agricultural bills have been presented in the US Congress. One such bill, the “Not One More Inch or Acre Act” bans ownership of agricultural land and real estate properties by a Chinese entity in America. It also would give the President authority to require a sale if existing property ownership is considered a national security risk. Another bill presented by a bipartisan group of Senators bans agricultural land purchases and leases from entities under the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary, defined as Iran, North Korea, China, or Russia.
Based on the 2021 USDA data, foreign entities own 40 million acres of private agricultural and timberland. Maine has the most foreign land ownership followed by Texas, Alabama, Washington, and Michigan. At 12.80 million acres, Canada is the biggest foreign land owner, followed by the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany. China accounts for 3% of all foreign-owned US Farmland.
National security and the protection of our country’s food sources are primary concerns. Also, outside purchases of local farmland directly compete against our local farmers driving up prices and making it more difficult for private producers to thrive.
As this discussion continues at the federal level, Minnesota Dept of Agriculture’s general counsel Doug Spanier testified in a recent Senate Ag Committee meeting, “Minnesota is known for having one of the toughest corporate farm laws and foreign ownerships and we actually enforce it as well as compared to some other states.”
The 1977 Minnesota Alien Farm Law, MN Statue 500.221, only allows U.S. citizens, permanent resident aliens, and business entities that have less than 20% foreign interest may have an interest in agricultural land - ownership, lease, easement, or any other type of interest, whether legal or beneficial. Minnesota’s current makeup of foreign ownership consists of seven permanent residents, one immigration visa holder, and three foreign entities grandfathered in. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) is authorized to force a sale of land held by entities that do not comply with the law.
County assessors are on the front line of land transactions and can access MDA records to verify certifications of foreign or corporate ownership. Interested foreign companies must also abide by the Minnesota Corporate Farm Law (Statue 500.24) provision that no corporation, LLC, trust, or limited partnership shall engage in farming or directly or indirectly, own, acquire, or otherwise obtain any interest, in agricultural land. Family farms that are corporations, partnerships, L.L.C., or trusts are exempt. The law requires a family farm structure to involve no more than five shareholders/partners/members, (husband and wife are one), and individuals holding 51% or more must reside on the land or actively engage in farming.
The strength of Minnesota’s laws prevents absentee owners and corporate and foreign investor groups. Those who can best care for the land are present to do so, which was the original intent of the law, and protects MN Farmland for future resident farmers.
TOP