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My Point of View by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

Comfort the afflicted.

In a column earlier this month, our congressman, Brad Finstad, blamed our loss of rural hospital services on undocumented workers instead of naming powerful culprits — in Albert Lea’s case, the leadership of Mayo Clinic. As we’ve seen before, Finstad doesn’t speak truth to power; he degrades the easiest targets he can find.

First, Mayo has plenty of money and investments, and it made a choice to drive doctors away with organizational demands like heavy patient loads, then claimed that providers didn’t want to live in Albert Lea, and used its manufactured shortage as an excuse to close most of Albert Lea’s hospital. Mayo could have put our “failing” hospital up for sale to try to save it, but it didn’t because it wants to maintain its near monopoly over patients in this region.

Second, Finstad is scornfully dismissive of the economic role that undocumented immigrants play in the southern Minnesota communities he represents. Undocumented workers paid an estimated $222 million in Minnesota state and local taxes in 2022 without being eligible for many programs such as Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance and child tax credits.

According to Hacer, an organization that does research and outreach on our Latino population, the profile of undocumented workers in southern Minnesota looks something like this:

• Predominantly young adults ages 20-40

• Mostly from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala

• Significant role in labor-intensive industries

• Total numbers are estimated between 4,294 and 10,450

• They add $4.1 billion to $5.8 billion in value to the southern Minnesota economy and create more jobs for everyone

We have re-elected a representative who chooses to kick down people who are less fortunate than him and whose labor is often difficult and dangerous. Finstad is also copying the leaders of his own party and making the same false, demeaning arguments about undocumented immigrants that they do.

Many rural hospitals are in danger of closing due to multiple pressures, not just the burden of undocumented immigrant care that Finstad focuses on. As KFF Health News noted in late October, the one specific thing rural hospitals have raised alarms about the most is Medicare Advantage, the privatized version of Medicare, which pays a much lower rate of reimbursement than regular Medicare.

Privatized Medicare is how CEOs get their fingers in the pot of public money and extract value for themselves while delivering a worse product to seniors. For example, UnitedHealthcare has more than doubled its rate of denials for care for its Medicare Advantage patients following hospital stays between 2020 and 2022, according to a Senate investigation released in October and reported by CNN.

To make matters worse, president-elect Trump has nominated Dr. Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), despite the fact that Dr. Oz has a private financial interest in Medicare Advantage valued at up to $600,000.

Whenever you see Republicans blaming immigrants, you would be wise to keep a steady gaze on where their hands are around the pots of money labeled Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

We will see this over and over in the next two years as Republicans in Congress need to find scapegoats for incoming Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s erratic demands to cut entitlements and fund tax cuts that skew heavily in favor of the wealthiest Americans. Their accumulating wealth doesn’t trickle down much to Freeborn County, and when people get angry about erosion of infrastructure and services, guess where Republicans will try to direct people’s rage? One of the surest targets is immigrants and the border.

It’s a head fake.

You know what money does reliably get here? Payments from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. These are programs that have been lifting substantial numbers of rural people out of poverty for generations. That money gives people dignity and goes into our communities and keeps us afloat.

In November, against our economic interests, we empowered Finstad to be a willing accomplice in unraveling our social safety net so billionaires can play “Who has the fanciest yacht?”
I re-read the words of the Magnificat in the book of Luke this Sunday, and I thought of Mary’s song alongside Finstad’s words making a punching bag of undocumented immigrants:

“God has shown strength with his arm
and scattered the proud in their conceit,
Casting down the mighty from their thrones
and lifting up the lowly.
God has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.”

A Merry Christmas to all, including to all who labor in physically demanding jobs, to all who lose sleep about their immigration status and to all who make room at the inn.

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.