Every year Minnesota’s Department of Health produces a report on the state’s health. Minnesota has a number of significant health issues — a heavily consolidated health system that has some of the highest costs in the country. Declining quality and health outcomes. High rates of drug addiction, overdoses and alcohol abuse. Rampant poor health behaviors leading to high chronic disease rates. Growing mental illness prevalence and suicides. So you might assume that the report would address these serious issues. And you would be wrong. (Health report)
You might start by reading the appendix regarding the report’s creation, where it will become apparent how little effort was spent on actually identifying and discussing the real issues related to our citizens’ health and health care. And you will see the constant focus on, you guessed it, diversity, inclusion, equity, systemic racism. Then you might read the Executive Summary, where of course, you will see no discussion of the truly important issues I list above, but lots more DEI gibberish and an introduction to one whole section of the report on “nature.” You have to keep the environmental hysterics happy too, apparently even in a supposed report on health.
The commissioner’s letter comes next, and here is where you understand why the real health problems facing Minnesota are never going to be addressed. The commissioner is, to be very blunt, a DEI hire. She has no experience or background in health care delivery or management that would qualify her for the role. She does have the right skin color. From her perspective, everything is seen through a DEI lens, but only in terms of favoring supposed disadvantaged groups. Inequities which clearly affect other groups are ignored, and there are health issues which disproportionately impact whites, Asians and other groups. The commissioner’s letter accompanying the report assumes that there is structural racism everywhere in health and health care and that this is responsible for any difference among groups.
The Walz administration is committed to racism and division in every area. The commissioner and Department of Health are fully reflective of this. When this is the driving motivation for all your actions, you cannot possibly even recognize, much less fix, the true problems; you can only exacerbate them. A person’s health, and appropriate use of health care, is most directly impacted by their personal behaviors. If you don’t have a healthy diet, don’t get exercise, if you smoke, use illegal drugs, drink too much or engage in other poor health behaviors, you will be in worse health. If you don’t have regular physician visits or follow through on recommended treatments, you won’t get good health care and improve your health.
The focus on supposed racism overlooks all personal responsibility; in fact it generates excuses for, and encourages, behavior that worsens health. It perpetuates a victim mentality, which creates hopelessness and anger. It fosters divisiveness and adds to stress. And meanwhile, there is not one word in the report on how to address the high cost and declining quality of Minnesota’s health care system or how to improve personal responsibility. Because the commissioner doesn’t have a clue about how to understand or fix those problems.
But on the lighter side, here is one interesting nugget in the report: from 2013 to 2021, a period in which the state was entirely governed by pro(re)gressive nutjobs, the average number of poor mental health days reported by Minnesotans more than doubled. No surprise there.
Kevin Roche runs The Healthy Skeptic, a website about the health care system, and has many years of experience working in the health care industry. If you have health care-related questions, you can contact Kevin at xuebpur@urnygul-fxrcgvp.pbz and he may answer the question in a column.
Read more from Kevin Roche at his website: healthy-skeptic.com
Kevin Roche
Kevin Roche runs The Healthy Skeptic, a website about the health care system, and has many years of experience working in the health care industry.
