State Representative David Bly, MN District 25B

I have been back in Northfield a little more than a week and have been attempting to catch up on all those loose ends left hanging.  It has been a busy week and a half and looks to continue in that vein but I will try not to avoid this communication tool if I can.

First let me report that I went to New York to help look after my brother Richard who recently discovered he has a brain tumor.  In addition to tending to him in the hospital and helping settle some affairs I worked diligently to try to get his apartment more amenable to his return.  The hospital kept saying they needed to send him home, as they were not doing anything for him.  The truth is after the initial tests their ability to bill for his stay had ended.  

We were waiting for the results of the brain biopsy to see what were dealing with.  But my brother suffered a set back from the biopsy – paralysis on his left side and it was clear he could not go home to his five story walk up in that condition. The hospital was in a double bind as my brother could not go home and the rehab unit could not accept him with a diagnosis.  The insurance company would not allow it.  Eventually a deal was worked out so that he could be transferred even though the diagnosis would take several more days.  

We now know that my brother has brain cancer, that it is treatable and we hope for the best.  My mother and sister are looking after him, which allowed me to return home.  

Land and People with Wendell Berry

Last Friday night I attended 25th anniversary celebration of the Landstewardship Project “Keeping the Land and People Together”.  I saw several Northfielders in the audience and many old friends from western Minnesota.  We all enjoyed conversation, music, readings, and local foods.Minnesota poets Joe Paddock and Mary Rose O’Reilley read from their works celebrating the land and rural life and Kentucky poet and essayist Wendell Berry  read from some of his new works, “A new poem about hope and a funny story about Burley Coulter.”  Joe was one of the co-editors of “Soil and Survival” a great publication about the preservation of land and rural life.  Mary Rose is an award winning poet.Those unfamiliar with Berry () would do well to study his essays in the numerous books he has published from The Unsettling of America, The Hidden Wound, to Home Economics, to What Are People For?.

A recurring theme in his work is the importance of people to a landscape and how our current trend in the last 100 years has been to force people away from a landscape that as a result we are destroying, with chemicals and machinery.  The following morning I had the pleasure of joining a group of folks for sightseeing and birdwatching with Berry on the Dave and Florence Minar’s Cedar Summit farm , just north of New Prague.  As we walked through the pasture where the Minard herd are fed on chemical free grass, Wendell asked why would we let agriculture be dictated by the machinery on the farm and not the people and the land itself.  It was clear he felt very much at home in that pasture.  

Healthcare reform with Kip Sullivan

Later that same day I drove to MNPact  in Burnsville for a forum with Kip Sullivan who you may remember from previous posts is an advocate of single payer universal healthcare system. Kip is a wealth of knowledge and a very articulate proponent of what could prove to be the fix for our ailing system.  

Healthcare is one the issues I hear about continually and is written about daily.  As an example here is a link to an article I received this morning while writing this blog.

"Why isn't the richest country in the world also the healthiest?"

by Weldon Berger | Jul 1 2007

Americans die younger and spend more years disabled than our counterparts in Canada and Europe. Our infant mortality rate is higher, too. And yet, even though the most common objections to nationalized health care from its opponents in the U.S. are that it's too expensive, too restrictive and too inefficient, we spend way more money on health care than they do. Why, if our health care is the best in the world and we spend more money on it than anyone else and the free market is a marvel of efficiency, aren't our results the best in the world?   (To read more click here)

Kip spoke for about an hour and a half on the history of health insurance in the U. S. and how got in to the mess we are in.  He then talked briefly about the wrong headed solutions currently in vogue like report cards and disease management both likely to cost more and reduce quality.

Afterwards, I was joined by six other area legislators to talk about our views and answer questions.  There was agreement on the fact that the issue is one or two on everyone’s list and we have been talking about it for years.  All six legislators were newly elected democrats who want to be a part of positive change at the legislature, which for me was the most hopeful part of our presentation. It remains to be seen what we will do but we have been working on bills that will move us closer to a better solution to the healthcare mess.

Several folks had seen Michael Moore’s “Sicko” and made reference to it.  They urged others to see it as well.