ROCHESTER — Health care is big business in southern Minnesota, where current governor and now vice presidential candidate Tim Walz got his political start, but what’s Walz’s record on health care issues?
Walz, who has served as Minnesota’s governor since 2019, has pushed through many DFL initiatives, from providing free lunches in public schools to legalizing recreational marijuana use. He also oversaw the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
his
After taking office as governor, Walz said access to health care and affordable health care would be a priority for his administration.
“We also need to reaffirm our Minnesota values that health care is a fundamental human right,” Walz said. “As Minnesotans, we can figure out how to deliver health care more efficiently, more cheaply and with better outcomes.”
As Walz gains national attention as a potential vice presidential candidate, let’s take a look at his record on health care policy.
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision overturning federal abortion rights, Governor Walz issued an executive order protecting the right to abortion services in Minnesota, particularly for patients traveling from other states, such as North Dakota and South Dakota, which limit or prohibit access to abortion care.
Abortion is legal under the Minnesota Constitution, but in January 2023, Governor Walz signed a bill into law making abortion access law.
“Today, we deliver on our promise to erect a firewall against efforts to overturn reproductive freedom,” Walz said in a statement at the time. “No matter who sits on the Minnesota Supreme Court, this bill will ensure Minnesotans have access to reproductive health care for generations to come.”
In April 2023, Governor Walz signed the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, which protects out-of-state patients and abortion providers from legal and criminal repercussions from other states, making the protections set forth in his executive order into state law.
That Spring, Waltz
The bill would end the state-funded Positive Abortion Alternatives program, increase payment rates for family planning and abortion services and repeal parts of Minnesota laws regarding abortion that were ruled unconstitutional in July 2022 by Ramsey County District Judge Thomas Gilligan.
Minnesota Republicans called the bills “the most extreme pro-abortion bills in America.”
“As Democrats continue to push this dangerous and extreme agenda, they continue to reject reasonable protections for women and children, like guardrails that limit late-term abortions and provide parental notice and consent,” said Mike Longergan, executive director of the Minnesota Republican Party.
Minnesota has been a hub for abortion care since the fall of the 1960s, as most of its neighboring states restrict access to abortion. Roe v. Wade. In 2023,
20% of Minnesota abortion patients
They did not live in the state, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
As COVID-19 began to spread around the world, Chancellor Walz declared a peacetime state of emergency on March 13, 2020. He regularly, and controversially, Governor Walz extended the peacetime state of emergency until July 1, 2021. He also issued an executive order requiring people to stay at home and closing non-essential businesses starting March 25. The order was lifted on May 18, but restaurants were allowed to operate only partially through the summer of 2020.
On July 22, 2020, a statewide mask mandate went into effect.
“This is the cheapest, most effective way to get our businesses open, get our kids back to school, keep our grandparents healthy, and get back to the life we all miss so much.”
The statewide mask mandate ended in May 2021.
When COVID-19 cases surged in November 2020 and patients flooded Minnesota hospitals, Waltz
Implemented a four-week “dial-back” plan
To curb the spread of the disease, public gatherings will be limited and restaurants and other non-essential businesses will be temporarily closed for indoor service only.
During the pandemic, Minnesota has set up free COVID-19 testing sites in major metropolitan areas, created a financial incentive program for COVID-19 vaccinations, and rolled out a housing assistance program using federal CARES Act funding.
The state also purchased a $5.5 million refrigerated warehouse in May 2020 in case COVID-19 deaths exceeded mortuary and funeral home capacity. The warehouse was not used for such purposes, so the state
2022.
State Rep. Tina Liebling (D-Rochester), chair of the Minnesota Assembly’s Health Care Financing and Policy Committee, said Walz handled the COVID-19 pandemic well at a time when local, national and global leaders were facing uncertainty.
“He listened to the experts, he was very resolute and focused on keeping Minnesotans safe and he made the tough decisions,” Liebling said. “He had a great health commissioner in Jan Malcolm and he took her advice to heart.”
Waltz
Trump knew his pandemic measures, such as mask mandates, were unpopular. “It got to the point where I said, ‘Please wear a mask so that you can live long enough to vote against me,'” he said.
Walz’s use of executive power as governor has drawn criticism from Republicans, who have sought to limit his powers in 2021. One such attempt was a bill authored by Sen. Carla Nelson (R-Rochester) that would have prohibited schools from closing during emergencies. The bill did not become law.
“What happened is so tragic, we must ensure that no child is ever put at risk like this again,” Nelson said after the then-Republican-controlled state Senate passed the bill. “We must stop the Governor from using his emergency powers to keep our children out of school for nearly a year.”
In June 2021, Governor Walz signed an executive order restricting “conversion therapy,” a form of treatment aimed at changing sexual or gender identity that has been discredited and opposed by some medical groups, including the American Medical Association.
As of 2022, several US states have restricted or prohibited access to gender-affirming care, particularly for minors, which the World Health Organization defines as medical, psychological, behavioral and sociological interventions “designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity.”
In response, Governor Walz signed an executive order in March 2023 directing state agencies to protect gender-affirming health care workers and patients.
“Every day is a risk to our children and those involved,” Governor Walz said in signing the executive order. “As we wait for the Legislature to complete its process, we will ensure we have the protections we can provide now.”
Governor Walz plans to sign both the gender reassignment care protections and the conversion therapy ban into law in April 2023.
As with abortion, demand for gender-affirming health care providers in Minnesota has increased significantly since other states, such as Florida and Texas, began restricting access.
Charity Care and Medical Debt
According to a 2022 Post-Bulletin investigation, the Mayo Clinic
He sued multiple patients over unpaid medical bills.
These patients could have been eligible for hospital financial assistance, which waived some or all of their medical expenses, or charity care policies.
In 2023, Governor Walz signed a bill requiring hospitals to pre-screen patients to see if they qualify for charity care before collecting medical debt.
November 2023.
In 2024, Waltz
This prevents hospitals from withholding medical care due to unpaid debts, prevents medical debts from being automatically transferred to a patient’s spouse upon the patient’s death, and prevents medical debts from appearing on credit scores.
“A life-saving cancer treatment or emergency room visit shouldn’t result in a lower credit score or lifelong debt,” Waltz said.
Both bills were authored by Sen. Liz Boldon of Rochester and Rep. Liz Reyer of Eagan, both Democrats. Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is investigating the medical debt practices of Mayo Clinic and Arena Health, also played a key role in the bills.
The Mayo Clinic and the law that keeps nurses at the bedside
During Minnesota’s 2023 legislative session, state lawmakers have introduced two bills: one to create an Affordable Care Commission and another that would require hospitals to create a task force to set minimum nurse staffing levels (part of the Bedside Nurse Retention Act (KNABA)).
Before these bills reached Governor Walz’s desk, a lobbyist for the Mayo Clinic
And leaders of other states are threatening to move “significant” investment out of Minnesota if these two “highly problematic” proposals become law.
That big investment is Mayo Clinic’s $5 billion “Be Bold, Be Progressive, Be Free in Rochester” expansion plan, which includes constructing five new buildings in downtown Rochester by 2030.
Congress ultimately did not send the proposal, which Mayo opposed, to Waltz’s desk, but Waltz
The bill established a student loan forgiveness program for nurses and directed the state to complete a nursing workforce report to find out why nurses are leaving the profession.
The Minnesota Nurses Association, the nursing union that supported KNABA,
The bill was scrapped.
“Nurses condemn Gov. Tim Walz for abandoning good government and succumbing to anti-democratic, anti-worker corporate tyranny,” former Minnesota Federation President Mary Turner said in a statement. “By allowing corporate executives to dictate public policy behind closed doors, Gov. Walz has made it clear to Minnesotans that their democratic process doesn’t work for them, but for the rich and powerful.”
At Mayo Clinic
Official announcement of the Unbound expansion
In November 2023, Walz said Mayo’s plans “exceeded expectations.”
Joe Alquist / Post-Bulletin
“Myself, our administration and the people of Minnesota have not forgotten that you chose to invest in Rochester, Minnesota,” Walz said. “You made a conscious effort, you looked elsewhere, you thought about where you could go, and you said, ‘No, this is the best place.'”
Drug costs, health privacy and other hot topics
At a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday, where Walz made his first appearance as Harris’ running mate, Harris highlighted Walz’s health care record. In addition to abortion rights, Harris touted Minnesota’s passage of paid family leave in 2023 (scheduled to go into effect in 2026).
Harris said that when Walz was a congressman, he “cast a key vote to pass Obamacare” in 2010, “which, of course, provided health insurance to tens of millions of Americans.”
Other health care policies enacted during Governor Walz’s term include:
Liebling said progress could be made on deprivatizing Minnesota’s public health care system, which he said is one of his goals as a legislator.
“To my knowledge, the governor is not opposed to this, but he’s not involved in it either,” she said. “I think his administration is starting to be open to the idea, but it’s been a long journey.”
