A free Narcan dispenser stands along Kensington Avenue in Philadelphia on May 08, 2024. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Welcome to The Topline, a weekly roundup of the big numbers driving the Minnesota news cycle, as well as the smaller ones that you might have missed. This week: An ongoing decline in drug overdoses; Mayo’s rising charity care expenses; lawmakers who die in office; and sexual harassment in state legislatures.
Overdose deaths show sustained decline
The relentless upward trend in American overdose deaths is in the midst of a sustained reversal, with deaths during the 12-month period ending in October 2024 down roughly 25% from a year prior.
Roughly 84,000 people died from a drug overdose between October 2023 and October 2024, according to provisional CDC data. That’s down from about 112,000 deaths in the 12 months ending in October 2023.
Factors contributing to the decline include more widespread distribution of the overdose reversal drug naloxone, better access to substance abuse treatment, shifts in the illegal drug supply, the resumption of prevention and response efforts after the pandemic, and better data collection practices, according to the CDC.
Minnesota’s numbers closely mirror the national trend, with the roughly 1,000 deaths for the period ending in October 2024 down a little more than 25% from the peak of 1,400 in mid-2023.
Still, the numbers remain well above historic baselines. The death rate in Minnesota is now similar to what it was at the peak of the pandemic.
Mayo Clinic bumps up charity care in response to AG investigation
The Mayo Clinic recently reached a settlement with the Office of Attorney General over its debt collection and charity care practices after a Rochester Post-Bulletin investigation reported in 2022 that the nonprofit hospital was initiating debt collection actions against patients who should have been eligible for free or reduced medical services.
The AG’s investigation found that the Mayo Clinic lagged behind its nonprofit peers in the provision of charity care services. In 2022 it devoted just 0.78% of its operating expenses to the practice. The nationwide average for nonprofit hospitals is around 3%.
Since then Mayo’s charity share has increased, which the AG’s office attributes to its investigation. In 2024 the clinic devoted 1.55% of its expenses to charity care. It reported $1.3 billion in operating profit that year.
Five Democratic members of Congress have died in office in the past 11 months
New Mexico U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva passed away last week due to complications of ongoing treatment for lung cancer. The 77-year-old representative’s constituents will be without representation until a special election takes place in the fall.
Grijalva isn’t even the first Democratic lawmaker to die in office this month: On March 5, 70-year-old Texas U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner, who had also recently faced grueling treatment for bone cancer, passed away. Turner was elected to the 18th District seat in November after its prior occupant, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, passed away from pancreatic cancer in July.
Two more Democratic congressmen, Donald Payne Jr. and Bill Pascrell of New Jersey, also died in office in 2024.
Since 2020, 13 U.S. senators or representatives have died while in office. Nine of them have been Democrats, underscoring the party’s long march toward gerontocracy: Lawmakers are stubbornly holding on to power regardless of age or underlying health conditions.
The trend is accelerating: Already, more lawmakers have died in office in the 2020s than in the entire decade of the 2010s. Democrats accounted for the overwhelming majority — 8 out of 12 — of in-office deaths during that decade as well. And they accounted for 12 out of the 19 deaths during the first decade of the 2000s.
The recent spate of deaths weakens the Democrats’ power in Congress at a time when its voters are demanding aggressive actions to forestall the Trump administration’s agenda.
State politics has a sexual misconduct problem
Between 2013 and 2024 there were 400 allegations of sexual harassment against 145 sitting state lawmakers, according to a recent report from the nonpartisan National Women’s Defense League.
Unlike in-office mortality, legislative harassment knows no party: 51% of allegations were levied against Republican members, while Democrats accounted for 49%.
Minnesota has three lawmakers on the list: Former Republican Rep. Tony Cornish, who resigned in 2017 after multiple women working at the Capitol accused him of sexual harassment; Democratic Sen. Dan Schoen, who resigned the same year after facing similar allegations; and Republican Rep. Rod Hamilton, who was stripped of a committee assignment in 2018 after a woman accused him of touching her without her consent.
Hamilton remained in office until 2022.