Meetings:
The Rochester Post Bulletin notes Monday's visit by the House Veterans Affairs Committee head:
Minnesota 1st District Rep. Tim Walz is hosting a meeting Monday with House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., at the Government Center in Rochester.
The event will be from 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in the council board room. Walz and Filner will give an update on the committee's work and take questions from the public.
Today, Congressman Walz will hold office hours in his Mankato office from 12-2. The office is located in downtown Mankato on the corner of Broad and Main Streets at 227 East Main Street. No appointment is necessary.
Then, he'll be off to a fundraiser for the Sixth Congressional District DFL. Word is that his keynote address will be at 4:30 p.m. Rumor has it that in DC, Congresswoman Bachmann asked Walz what he was doing in her district. Perhaps he'll share the story in his remarks. More details (note time change) here.
Austin Daily Herald: fund medical research
The Austin Daily Herald editorial board thinks medical research deserved to get more money in the health and education appropriations bill:
NIH research should be a priority
At first glance, a $152 billion health and education spending bill passed by the U.S. House Thursday looks like a great deal. However, one very important aspect of the American health system was overlooked.
The National Institutes of Health funds valuable and potentially life-saving research — some of which is taking place at the Hormel Institute in Austin. Unfortunately, the bill contains a less than 3 percent increase in funding for health research by NIH, its smallest increase in 38 years.Of all the spending on health care in the United States, research should be a top priority. It’s important to help those who cannot afford private health insurance, but it’s also important to research ways to prevent and cure the most serious diseases. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
After listening to the health care panel yesterday--which included Hormel Institute director Dr. Zigang Dong--it's hard to disagree. Some might call research funds directed to the Hormel Institute pork. We won't: Zigang Dong leads crack teams working on important cancer research. The work they're doing will likely benefit people worldwide, while bringing more doctors and scientists to southeastern Minnesota's burgeoning health care industry.
Rochester Post Bulletin: Health care and energy at summit
Both the Rochester and Austin editions of the Post Bulletin covered the Economic Summit. One of the tales from the audience supplies the lead in Health care, energy addressed at Rep. Walz's economic summit:
Al Layman's journey on a small Honda motor scooter Sunday from Austin to Northfield and back provided him an opportunity to see the importance of good transportation and its infrastructures.
The retired Austin man had little trouble, thanks in part to good weather, but more importantly to the decent and smooth country and back roads he weaved along on his 150-mile day trip to see his daughter and grandson. On the way he discovered a small meat market, which Layman found thanks in part to the connectivity of the alternative routes.
That slice of life is a metaphor to the bigger issue of the state of transportation, one which was addressed during a panel discussion Friday at the Southern Minnesota Economic Summit, hosted by First District Rep. Tim Walz. Other panels included the education system and agriculture, energy, conservation, health care and rural economic development.
We know that meat market in Nerstrand well, having had a similar experience as Layman. We came to town after it was closed for the day, but two of the employees were sitting outside while meat was smoking inside. They opened up and gave us heavenly samples, with no expectation of a sale since the register was closed, along with tales of the rich and famous for whom they had supplied meat. A perfect touch in the tiny town near Thorsten Veblen's boyhood home. Nerstrand itself might be emblematic of the talent produced by Minnesota's small towns.
Back to the article, which concludes with some remarks from Congressman Walz:
During Walz' keynote address, he said that Minnesota is a leader of health care and that a solution to the nation's problem could come from this state. Other legislators, he said, often sidestep the issue or give black-and-white ideas on improving the system's state, but Walz said pressure should be put on them to devise a better system, not necessarily modeling after any country in particular, but creating America's own system.
"We have to get away from the fear of talking about that because this health-care issue, I'm absolutely convinced, is at the core of some of the angst among many of our business owners," Walz said.
"We have to have this discussion and we've set up ourselves a discussion on this: it's either tax or no tax. Neither one is true, and neither one is a good way to approach this. The question is, 'What do we value in this country and prioritize, and how do we best deliver our collective resources to solve those problems?' And then, how do we monitor to make sure we're doing that?"
Given his inclination toward looking to technology and education, Veblen would approve.
Comments