Minnesota's Still the Healthiest State

Dane Smith, Star Tribune

Continuing a pattern of intensified cheerleading as he heads into a reelection year, Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced with some fanfare Monday that Minnesota once again was ranked the healthiest state in the nation by the United Health Foundation.

Minnesota has been ranked first 10 times since 1990 on that report, and has been rated very high on almost every socioeconomic indicator for at least three decades, since the state was featured in a 1973 Time magazine article titled "The Good Life in Minnesota."

Nevertheless, Pawlenty, flanked by three department heads at a State Capitol news conference, said the latest health ranking was "tremendous news" and shows "that our ongoing commitment to good health continues to yield huge dividends for the state."

Acknowledging the top rankings of previous years, Pawlenty noted a few specific improvements since shortly before he took office: from fourth to first in percentage of residents with health care coverage, a 7 percentage-point reduction in smoking, a move from sixth to third lowest in the child-poverty rate and a 17 percent reduction in the infant-mortality rate.

A leading antagonist on the DFL side of health issues, state Sen. Linda Berglin of Minneapolis, said she too was "pleased" by the ranking. But she said it has been maintained only because DFLers fought and won epic battles against Pawlenty's proposals for major cutbacks in subsidized insurance programs for low- and middle-income folks, and against other proposed cuts in 2004 and 2005.

"I guess his press conference was to announce how glad he is that his proposals didn't become law," Berglin said.

But Pawlenty's press secretary, Brian McClung, said Minnesota's sustained high rankings need to be perceived another way.

"In 2003, when we had the biggest deficit ever and decided not to raise state taxes, Democrats said that the sky is falling and that Minnesota as we know it was gone," McClung said.

"And now we're about to begin 2006 with a $1 billion surplus, we're the healthiest state in the nation, we have one of the lowest unemployment figures and high quality-of-life rankings across the board. The gloom-and-doom pessimism of the Democrats is not reflected in the facts," McClung said.

Pawlenty, a marathon runner, used the occasion to tout his fitness initiatives. He has declared 2005 to be the "Year of Fitness in Minnesota," has issued a Governor's Fitness Challenge and a way to track progress on-line at www.beactiveminnesota .org, and has begun a Governor's Fit City program to recognize Minnesota cities that are taking steps to promote fitness.

Sizing up the findings

The ranking game is a tricky one and can be subject to manipulation or, as Pawlenty put it, relying on a "data slice that's helpful to interest groups." Conservative Republican interest groups, for instance, rank Minnesota's business climate low, while liberal groups rate it near the top.

Many state rankings come from state or federal governments or relatively neutral sources, and the foundation's report card on health in Minnesota lines up with most other rankings that show enviable statistics. The foundation is funded by UnitedHealth Group, based in Minnetonka.

Among the highlights of the 2005 survey:

• Minnesota ranks in the top 10 states on 10 of the 18 measures in the study. Particular strengths are: the lowest rate of uninsured people, at 8.9 percent; the lowest rate of cardiovascular deaths at 248.2 per 100,000 population, and a low infant-mortality rate.

• Since 1990 in Minnesota: Infant mortality declined from 8.9 to 4.8 deaths per 1,000 births; the poverty rate for children declined from 21.2 percent to 9 percent; the prevalence of smoking declined from 28.7 percent to 20.7 percent of the population.

• A couple of problems persist, the study found. Racial disparities are troubling, with an infant-mortality rate for blacks more than twice that for non-Hispanic whites. And the percentage of Minnesotans considered obese, 22.6 percent, is rising, although still slightly lower than the national average.

Following Minnesota in the report's rankings were Vermont, New Hampshire, Utah, Hawaii and North Dakota. The bottom five states, from 50th to 46th, were Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina and Arkansas.

Dane Smith • 651-292-0164

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