CSG Regional Round-up: The Midwest

IA • IL • IN • KS • MI • MN • ND • NE • OH • SD • WI • AB • MB • ON • SK

MINNESOTA CHANGES MEDIATION LAW

Through unforeseen, exceptional circumstances, Minnesota lawmakers passed three major pieces of legislation in 2020 despite having to conduct business remotely as a result of COVID-19. One of the most impactful pieces was a modification of Minnesota’s Farmer-Lender Mediation Act. This law dates back to 1986, and it gives farmers the opportunity to renegotiate, restructure or resolve farm debt through mediation. Under this law, creditors cannot collect a debt against an agricultural property until an offer of debt mediation has been extended. The old law gave the two sides 90 days to reach an agreement, but with this year’s passage of HF 4599, legislators extended the mediation time to 150 days or Dec. 1, whichever is later.

In addition to this adjustment in the Famer-Lender Mediation Act, Minnesota legislators came to broad agreement on new agriculture-focused appropriation (HF 4490) and policy (HF 4285) bills. This legislation means the state will continue to fund farm safety grants that help farmers install new rollover protective structures on older tractors and invest in new safety features for farm work in and around grain safety bins. Additionally, lawmakers added statutory language extending immunity to veterinarians who report suspected cases of animal abuse to authorities.

Other significant legislative agreements including the establishment of a grant program for independently owned meat and poultry processing plants to expand operations to handle the backlog of livestock due to the closure of major processing facilities, the expansion of state Department of Agriculture programs to improve mental health services and suicide prevention programs and modification of a disaster relief program for farmers so that assistance can be provided based on revenue losses due to “contagious animal disease” or an “infectious human disease.”

CONTACT TRACING APP EARLY USE

In early June, North Dakota was the only Midwestern state to launch an app for contact tracing. South Dakota also uses this app, which is called CARE19 and gives users a random ID number and anonymously stores location data throughout the day, tracking only locations where the person visits for at least 10 minutes. No personal information is kept. North Dakota will also offer a second contact tracing app being developed jointly by Apple Inc. and Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.

NEW PRIVACY LAWS

Concerns about privacy surrounding new telehealth applications including contact tracing technologies led legislators in Kansas to approve the “Contact Tracing Privacy Act,” part of HB2016. Attorney General Derek Schmidt proposed this legislation in response to concerns raised after news reports suggested the Kansas Department of Health and Environment may have been using cell phone location data to track COVID-19. Under Kansas’ new law, participation in contact tracing must be voluntary and information cannot be collected through cell phone tracking, excluding contact tracing apps. Any information collected may not be used by state agencies. This law runs through April 2021.

PAY FOR ESSENTIAL WORKERS

Workers in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan partnered with the Canadian government to boost wages of COVID-19 essential workers. The province’s most vulnerable citizens are eligible for a 16-week boost in pay as part of the Temporary Wage Supplement Program. During the program’s first phase, a wage supplement of $400/ month was made available to home health care workers and individuals employed at long-term care facilities, childcare centers, emergency and transition shelters and community-based group homes. Originally, workers had to have monthly earnings of less than $2,500 to be eligible, but in early June the program was expanded to waive the income threshold for workers at certain long-term care facilities.

NEW VOTING DISTRICTS

Michigan is gearing up for big changes in how new political maps will be drawn. In May, Michigan ended its first phase of a new redistricting process that is the first of its kind in the Midwest. More than 6,000 Michigan voters completed applications to be part of a 13-member citizens commission that will redraw the state’s political maps next year. This transition away from legislatively drawn districts is the result of a voter-approved constitutional amendment in 2018. An online application portal sent applications to 250,000 randomly selected voters and 200 applicants will be chose as semifinalists. These selections are random with the constraint that the semifinalists mirror the geographic and demographic makeup of the state.

TRANSITIONING FROM MEDICAID

Indiana has received federal approval of a first-of-its-kind program that helps individuals transition from Medicaid to employer-based health coverage or a plan in the individual marketplace. The new “workforce bridge” builds on the Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP), which is used by the state to expand Medicaid to cover low-income adults. Each HIP participant has $2,500 placed in an account each year to use for health care expenses. Members leaving the Healthy Indiana Plan can continue to use up to $1,000 from their account for up to 12 months in order to pay premiums, deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance during their transition to other types of coverage.