Last week the story broke that the Tristanis are leaving Hazelton.  This highlights the flip side of the concept of “Small Town North Dakota” — we romanticize the image of a one horse town, without bothering to remember the problems that come with them.

What happens when you bring new ideas to a small town in North Dakota?  At best, it seems, you run afoul of the city council.  Ask Larry Waith.  At worst, well, ask the Tristanis.  Ask Steven Jones, who was fired as chief of the Larimore police because he had the audacity to enforce the laws townies preferred to skirt rather than repeal.

The damning undercurrent of the Hazelton account, however, is the total lack of local economics in that city.  The Tristanis tried to set up a cafe and it failed, so they turned to fixing and flipping Bismarck-area houses.  Tom Weiser, who spearheaded the project to lure folks to the town, himself works at Wal-Mart.  In Bismarck.

I guess you can forget any notions you had about “close knit” being in the equation for our state’s small towns.  Or that they’re hospitable and inviting to new people and ideas.

All eyes were on the Senate Finance Committee’s draft bill for healthcare reform, and it seems very little of substance has changed.

In continuing the pursuit of health-care “co-ops”,  The Senate Finance draft bill provides a possible loophole for scam artists to form shell companies to drain away the government’s startup subsidy.  Moreover, multiple co-ops will be allowed in each state, severely diluting their market power against established insurers.

The bill does next to nothing to aid people who want to buy insurance across state lines, requiring “national” plans to be registered in every state they want to do business in.

The bill does nothing to grow the risk pool.  People will be permitted to buy plans that only cover catastrophic claims, leaving the rest of people who opt for traditional coverage with higher premiums than if everyone was paying a fair share.

And naturally, the Senate Finance Committee asks much less of health insurers in general than HR 3200.  Seniors will pay 5 times as much as young people for the same insurance policy.  HR 3200 limits this to 2:1.

The bill fails to take any sort of leadership on malpractice reform, instead suggesting that states try out some pilot programs of their own.

Kent and Max have compromised on almost everything, but with Republican “support” for any substantiative measure evapourating, what have they gained?  I say ignore Kent’s boondoggle and pass the HELP committee’s version through the Senate instead.

With economic conditions still fairly poor for heavy industries worldwide, Bobcat has shuttered its Bismarck plant, terminating roughly 600 jobs. The company will consolidate its operations at its Gwinner plant.

Reportedly, North Dakota’s airwaves are being flooded with ads on the heathcare issue. I say reportedly, because I haven’t actually seen any such ads.  The trouble with waging an ad campaign in the summer is that, well, there’s really not that much on, and not that many people watching it.  I could stick my eyes to the tube for a day straight out of morbid curiosity, or I can simply offer you my two cents during this monthlong doldrum before anything actually happens again.

The bottom line is this: North Dakota needs healthcare that is local, comprehensive, and affordable.  Local meaning that no one, even in the sparsely settled Badlands, should be very far from a doctor. Comprehensive, meaning that everyone should a health insurance plan that covers pretty well all of their health care costs.  Affordable, meaning that between premiums, co-payments, and out-of-pocket expenses, nobody should have to pay more than 20% of their income in a year for healthcare.

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The steady chugging of wind power development around here could come to a halt.  A new report from The Economist takes a look at the macroeconomic factor that have caused wind generation in the United States to slow its expansion.  Essentially, it’s the credit crisis.  Turbines have a lot of up-front investment and take a while to pay back — something that’s easier to do when loans flow like champagne.

As Senate Finance chairman, Kent Conrad continues to be a key player in the health care debate.  Though the House version of the health care bill is out in the open (just type “HR 3200″ into http://thomas.loc.gov/ ), visible to all, Kent is apparently insisting that the Senate version won’t see the light of day until it is finished from the perspective of his committee, but the good money’s on a cooperative plan.  Though it’s still got that bipartisan buzz, the new options may be too small to matter.

Conrad also clarifies how he shopped around for his house loan.  Take a watch:

A criminal mastermind trashed the Fargo Teamster’s office looking for some quick cash. He didn’t get actually find any, but he did leave a big hole in the wall.

Stealing from hardworking men and women like the Teamsters is about as bad as you can get before you’re taking lollipops from preschoolers.  Whoever this guy is, he deserves to have his truck smashed in aside from some hefty sentencing.

MeritCare of Fargo is merging with Sanford Health of Sioux Falls, combining the two largest health providers in the Dakotas into a $3+ billion operation.

I would hope they take the opportunity to lower costs to patients through proper use of their scale of operations and reductions in administrative redundancies, and to expand service in outlying areas — rather than abusing their position.

Civil rights advocates in North Dakota have lost a key ally. ACLU of the Dakotas director Jennifer Ring was laid off in February. (Naturally, it didn’t hit the Forum until the other day.) The rights of the downtrodden will now have to be defended out of Minneapolis.

T. Boone Pickens is throwing in the towel on his Texas wind farm, but up here things are looking brighter for adding new electrical capacity.  Montana-Dakota Utilities has joined a plan for major new transmission lines between the upper Midwest and big cities.