Northland Lawmakers find common ground over rural ambulances

A split state government in St. Paul has seen a rocky start to the 2025 legislative session. Despite this, law makers from the northland are confident they still deliver on some of the issues facing northern Minnesota.

“For me, that means working on things like permitting reform for industries and projects in northern Minnesota. It means working on the helium deposit that we have in northern Minnesota and making sure that we get the tax collections from that to our local communities.” Said DFL State Senator Grant Hauschild.

“I’ve been working hard on children and family. We have a childcare shortage. It’s a desert. We’ve lost over 50% of our family childcare providers. I’ve been working with some alliances and childcare providers. I’ve done task force meetings, had some meeting groups going on, and meeting with individual centers too to make sure that they have a viable pathway to keep the doors open.” Said Republican Representative Natalie Zeleznikar.

Despite the difference in chamber, and party, both Representative Zeleznikar and Senator Hauschild say a big thing on the minds of many in rural Minnesota is emergency healthcare.

Rural Minnesota has an aging population with many reliant on Medicare which often doesn’t cover the full cost of ambulance services.

“Into the rural areas of the state, those services are generally subsidized by a municipality. A lot of times it’s one small municipality, even if that ambulance is serving multiple different areas. And so that model is becoming more difficult as the cost to run that ambulance is growing every year.” Explained Michael Juntunen, the President of the Minnesota Ambulance Association.

In 2024, both Zeleznikar and Hauschild traveled to Washington to advocate for reform at a federal level. Back in St. Paul, they both say they’re continuing to work for the Northland.

“I really think this session is our opportunity to work across the aisle, find bipartisan solutions and really do what Minnesotans expect of us.” Hauschild said.