Forces beyond our control will be creating difficult times in Greater Minnesota now and in the coming decades, but our approach to the difficulties will make all the difference for the kind of communities we leave to our children.

Much of the pressure comes from the changing demographics that are likely to hit Greater Minnesota harder than the Twin Cities metro area. A higher percentage of the population in Greater Minnesota is moving into an age demographic that will demand more services but will be less able to pay for those services.

The older we get, the sicker we get, but we also have less income to help pay medical bills that will likely rise. Government health care programs are used at a higher rate in Greater Minnesota than the metro area. Incomes are lower.

Already, we’re seeing examples of social services more easily provided in the Twin Cities than in outstate Minnesota. When the Legislature devised a compromise last spring on the General Assistance Medical Care program, only Twin Cities hospitals had the financial wherewithal to participate. It was just not financially feasible for outstate hospitals. Their payments for treating these indigent and poor, and often chronically ill, patients was going to be cut in the area of 75 percent.

Because federal law prohibits hospitals from turning away patients who need treatment because they cannot pay, hospitals are stuck with millions of dollars of cost in their “charity care” budgets.

But in an election, the tough questions have to be asked. Why should Greater Minnesota expect anything the rest of the state, or the metro area, won’t get? Why should Greater Minnesota matter? Why are we special?

We can think of a couple reasons. One of Minnesota’s most important economic drivers — agriculture and agriprocessing — occurs mostly in Greater Minnesota. This business is key because it brings money in from outside the state, outside the country. Agriprocessing doesn’t have to happen in Greater Minnesota. There are agriculture communities right across our borders that would be happy to land our agriprocessing.

A review of statewide school test scores show communities in Greater Minnesota have some of the best scores, consistently. They have some of the highest graduation rates. Greater Minnesota communities like Mankato, St. Cloud, Rochester and Duluth support institutions of higher learning and have a high percentage of college graduates.

So policy setters at the state level that expect Greater Minnesota to “tough it out” may not be considering the benefits these communities provide to the state as a whole. Greater Minnesota and the metro area have for years developed a partnership to making Minnesota a great place to live no matter what community you may be in. It would be a shame to see that dismantled.

— The Free Press of Mankato. Oct. 23