- Representative Long, let's talk a little bit about healthcare and I want you to also, I'll give everyone an opportunity to do this.

The governor sort of teed up the question of the Academic Center at the University of Minnesota Healthcare Center that a special session might be necessary there.

That's part of a much bigger picture, the problems that are various elements of our healthcare center, healthcare centers are having.

What was done about that issue in this session what remains to be done?

Big topic, but let's start with you Representative Long.

- Sure.

Happy to take that on.

So we have a merged system right now between the University of Minnesota and Fairview, used to be that the University of Minnesota had their own separate health program that they ran.

And University of Minnesota trains almost all doctors that are in our state.

So it's really important the work that happens at that University of Minnesota Medical Campus.

The out-of-state company, Sanford, is looking to acquire Fairview and that could put the University of Minnesota Medical System into the control of an out-of-state company.

And so that is something that is of a great concern to the university and to a number of our legislators.

And so they have been trying to determine what might be a good path forward and if they might be able to acquire some of those assets back to keep them controlled by the University of Minnesota.

So we haven't answered that question yet this session, but what we did do is give the Attorney General's office and our State Department of Health more ability to take a look at whether healthcare mergers, including the proposed Sanford Fairview merger are in the public interest.

And so that is something that I think that review will be ongoing now that we've passed that law.

But the reason we might have to come back for a special session is we don't know what that review will show and we don't know what the University of Minnesota might be able to negotiate or ask for as a way to exit their relationship with Fairview before any potential merger.

So these are big questions and the university is also going through a change in their president right now.

So those are all timing issues that didn't line up well with our session.

So we may have to come back, but I think there's gonna be a lot more discussion to be had in this area.

- Senator Duckworth, Fairview Healthcare Mergers, whatever.

- Sure.

- The floor is your.

- Sounds good.

So being a member of the higher education committee, this session, obviously this is something that was kind of topical, but unfortunately if I were to give a piece of constructive criticism to how this session, I guess was organized or carried out would be this is such a substantial issue that we should have engaged on it early on this session.

We should have had hearings about it.

We should have tried to find ways to fully understand the second and third order of effects of what could and likely is going to take place.

This is something we knew about before session even started.

And rather than diving into it during the legislative session, you know, we pushed through all kinds of other potential bills, ideas, programs and concepts, rather than doing one of our jobs as a legislature, which is to look at something as complex as this, figure out what makes sense, try to help the state find a way forward.

Now here we are done for the year and we've kind of left it to maybe the governor, maybe the Attorney General to kind of figure out potentially having to have a special session in the future, which won't involve the legislature holding hearings or asking questions.

My guess is we're likely just gonna be called in to maybe vote on something.

And I think that the missed opportunity here was to have the voice of the people of Minnesota be a part of this process as the legislature was in session, we could have addressed it early on and been at a point by this time this year having a much more, a better understanding of where this was headed, what the right course of action was to take so that we could take good care of the U and whatever is gonna happen with this potential merger.

- Senator Kunesh.

You're on mute.

- Sorry, I had the garbage trucks go through earlier, so I muted myself.

- We appreciate you muted yourself.

That was a good thing to do.

Go ahead.

- Yeah.

I don't really know that we could have really understood this issue within the legislative session.

And so I am really grateful that the Attorney General is taking the time to understand and review this merger in a better way and then bring it back to us when we have the facts.

Because when you're in the legislative session, there's so much going on, there's so many different viewpoints, there's so many rumors and this is happening now and that's happening now.

And I think it's just really important that we do take our time and are very diligent and intentional in understanding the long-term consequences of an out-of-state hospital system taking over or possibly becoming, you know, a controlling interest in our healthcare here in Minnesota.

And what concerns me is how we saw Mayo flex its muscles and when it came to the Nurses Bill, we don't want that to happen with an out-of-state.

We wanna make sure that Minnesota continues to get the quality healthcare that the U of M can continue to do the kind of medical research and practice and training that they do.

And most especially, we wanna make sure that in Minnesota, our reproductive rights and our health rights are not compromised by an organization outside of Minnesota where we as legislators could at some time be basically powerless.

- Representative Igo.

- Yeah.

What I'll say to that, and there's a lot covered here and there's a lot to talk about, but I think the most concerning thing we're dealing with right now is making sure we have a hospital network.

It's very well documented and reported that Fairview is struggling in hemorrhaging dollars on a daily basis.

And what's more concerning to me than having an out-of-state hospital network running things in our state, which happens all across the country, mind you that's not like this is the first time this has ever happened.

What concerns me is hospitals closing their doors and then us not having healthcare and well, there's Fairview right up here on the range where I'm from, we lose our hospitals because the company goes belly up.

We have a bigger issue than an out-of-state company here.

I appreciate the comments about making sure we wanna do this right and really digest everything.

Think twice, act once.

It's funny, we could have used that for the whole state budget and the whole budget process, maybe we wouldn't be in the situation, but we need to do the right thing here and maybe not be scared away by this out-of-state hospital thing.

There's partnerships to exist.

We have partnerships with the states around us and there's partnerships in business all the time, but we need to make sure that we're prioritizing the healthcare of Minnesotans and making sure to keep hospitals open is the first thing we should be doing.