Reading the Minneapolis Star Tribune continues to be a pleasure. As I recently noted, the combination of the area’s robustly candid political tradition, the comparative newness of immigration there, and the trouble it causes in this previously highly functional part of the country, produces stories that PC censorship in other areas of America would suppress.

A recent article on health insurance follows this valuable pattern. The authors report that although inhabitants of this well-organized state have a high rate of health insurance by national standards

“The number of Minnesotans without health insurance jumped nearly 30 percent over the past three years… The percentage of Minnesotans without health insurance jumped from 5.4 percent in 2001 to 6.7 percent in 2004…fewer Minnesotans are getting health coverage through their jobs, another sign that employers are cutting or scaling back health care benefits, because of the rising cost of those benefits…”[More Minnesotans are not insured by Glenn Howatt and Josephine Murphy, Star Tribune February 26 2005]],

Hispanic non-insured, the writers acknowledge, are the immediate reason for the increase:

“nearly one-third of Hispanics didn’t have insurance coverage in 2004, nearly double the rate in 2001… most work at jobs that don’t provide insurance or can’t afford the insurance that is offered”

But then the article goes on to lay out the facts: the non-payment by Hispanics of their health costs, (either via insurance premiums or direct settlement) is boosting bills for other Minnesotans, and causing their coverage to erode.

“there is same agreement that an increase in the uninsured means that both taxpayers and those with health insurance will pay the price.

“You get into a death spiral,” said Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis. “There are more and more uninsured, more and more uncompensated care, more and more costs left on the people who do have insurance,”

Bruce Rueben, executive director of the Minnesota Hospital Association… said decreasing employer coverage was partly responsible… Hospitals are forced to pass those costs along to patients who have insurance, he said.

“It ends up raising the cost of health care for everybody else”

The article concludes of course with the usual tear-jerking for Hispanics

“At the same time, Latinos are often distrustful of government programs and may not sign up for them even if they are eligible”

The obvious question, of course, is: why should Hispanic immigrants pay for any health care, when they can, in effect, steal it? Either from the Taxpayers directly, or, via the hospital Emergency Rooms, from private sector insurers via cost redistribution, and ultimately from legal employees via higher premiums and reduced benefits?

Ask Glenn Howatt and Josephine Marcotty