ROCHESTER — Health care is big business in southern Minnesota, where current governor and now vice presidential candidate Tim Walz got his start in politics. But what is Walz's record on health care-related matters? As Minnesota's governor since 2019, Walz has advanced many DFL initiatives, from providing free lunches in public schools to legalizing recreational cannabis use. He also oversaw the state's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftermath of George Floyd's murder at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
In his first speech after being sworn in as governor, Walz spoke about health care access and affordability as priority items for his administration. "We must also reaffirm our Minnesotan value that health care is a basic human right," Walz said. "As Minnesotans, we can figure out how to deliver health care more effectively, more affordably and with better results.
" As Walz rises to the national stage as the potential future vice president, here's a look at his record on health care policy. Following the U.S.
Supreme Court's June 2022 ruling that overturned the federal right to abortion, 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 restricted or banned access to abortion care. Abortion is legal under the Minnesota Constitution, but in January 2023, Walz signed a bill that codified abortion access into law. "Today, we are delivering on our promise to put up a firewall against efforts to reverse reproductive freedom," Walz said in a statement at the time.
"No matter who sits on the Minnesota Supreme Court, this legislation will ensure Minnesotans have access to reproductive health care for generations to come." In April 2023, Walz signed the Reproductive Freedom Defense Act, which protects out-of-state patients and abortion providers from legal and criminal repercussions from other other states — turning the protections laid out in his executive order into state law. That spring, Walz also signed legislation that ended the state-funded Positive Abortion Alternatives program, increased payment rates for family planning and abortion services, and repealed some portions of Minnesota Law concerning abortion that, in July 2022, Ramsey County District Judge Thomas Gilligan ruled unconstitutional.
Minnesota Republicans characterized these bills as the "most extreme pro-abortion legislation in the U.S." "As Democrats keep pushing this dangerous and extreme agenda through, they continue to vote down reasonable protections for women and children — including guardrails like limits on late-term abortions or providing parental notification or consent," Mike Longergan, executive director of the Republican Party of Minnesota, said in 2023.
With most of Minnesota's neighboring states restricting abortion access, Minnesota has become an abortion care hub since the fall of Roe v. Wade. In 2023, 20% of abortion patients in Minnesota did not live in the state, per the Guttmacher Institute.
As COVID-19 began spreading around the world, Walz declared a peacetime state of emergency on March 13, 2020. He periodically — and controversially — extended the peacetime emergency until it ended on July 1, 2021. Through an executive order, Walz also enacted a stay-at-home order beginning on March 25, closing non-essential businesses.
That order lifted on May 18, but restaurants could only operate at partial capacity through the summer of 2020. A statewide face mask mandate went into effect on July 22, 2020. "This is the way — the cheapest and most effective way — for us to open up our businesses, for us to get our kids back in school, for us to keep our grandparents healthy and for us to get back that life that we all miss so much," Walz said.
The statewide mask mandate ended in May 2021. When COVID-19 cases spiked in November 2020 — causing an influx of patients in Minnesota's hospitals — Walz implemented a four-week "dial back" plan to limit the spread of disease, restricting gatherings and temporarily closing restaurants and other non-essential businesses to indoor services. During the pandemic, the state of Minnesota established free COVID-19 testing sites in major metro areas, created a financial incentive program for COVID-19 vaccination and rolled out a housing assistance program using federal CARES Act dollars.
The state also purchased a $5.5 million refrigerated warehouse in May 2020 in order to store dead bodies in case the number of COVID-19 deaths overwhelmed morgues and funeral homes. The warehouse was never used for that purpose, and the state sold it in 2022.
State Rep. Tina Liebling, DFL-Rochester, who chairs the Minnesota House Health Finance and Policy Committee, said Walz handled the COVID-19 pandemic well despite the uncertainties leaders at the local, national and global levels faced during that time. "He listened to the experts, he was pretty steadfast and focused on keeping Minnesotans safe and he made the tough calls," Liebling said.
"He had a great commissioner of health, Jan Malcolm, and he really took her advice." Walz told Politico in 2021 he knew his pandemic policies, such as the mask mandate, were unpopular: "I got to the point where I was saying ‘Please, just wear the mask so you live long enough to vote against me,’" he said. Walz's use of his executive powers as governor drew criticism from Republicans, who in 2021 attempted to limit those powers.
One attempt was a bill authored by Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, that would have prohibited the closure of schools during a state of emergency. It did not become law.
"It was so devastating what happened that we have to make sure that our children are never put in this type of risk again," Nelson said after the then-Republican-controlled state Senate passed the measure. "We must prevent a governor from using emergency powers for nearly a year to keep our kids out of school." In June 2021, Walz signed an executive order that restricted "conversion therapy," a practice aiming to change one's sexual or gender identity that has been discredited and opposed by several medical organizations, including the American Medical Association.
Since 2022, several U.S. states have restricted or barred access to gender-affirming care, particularly for minors.
Gender-affirming care refers to interventions — medical, psychological, behavioral and social — "designed to support and affirm an individual’s gender identity," as defined by the World Health Organization. In response, Walz signed an executive order in March 2023 directing the state's agencies to protect gender-affirming care providers and patients. "Every single day is a risk to these children and the people involved,” Walz said in signing the executive order.
"And while we're waiting for the process to work its way through the Legislature, we're making sure that we put up ...
the protections that we can offer now." Walz would sign both the protections for gender-affirming care and the conversion therapy ban into law in April 2023. As with abortion, gender-affirming care providers in Minnesota have seen a substantial increase in demand since other states, such as Florida and Texas, began restricting access.
A 2022 Post Bulletin investigation found that Mayo Clinic had sued several patients over unpaid medical debt when those patients could have qualified for the hospital's financial assistance, or charity care, policy to forgive part or all of their medical bill. In 2023, Walz signed into law a bill that requires hospitals to preemptively screen patients to see if they are eligible for charity care before taking action to recoup their medical debt. That law went into effect in November 2023.
In 2024, Walz signed the Minnesota Debt Fairness Act, which prevents hospitals from withholding medical care due to unpaid debt, removed the automatic transfer of medical debt to patient's spouse upon their death and prevents medical debt from being reflected on credit scores. "Life-saving cancer treatments or a trip to the emergency room shouldn’t cause a tanked credit score or a lifetime of debt," Walz said. Both bills were authored by Rochester Sen.
Liz Boldon and Eagan Rep. Liz Reyer, both DFL. Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office is investigating Mayo Clinic and Allina Health over their medical debt practices, also played a key role in the bills.
During Minnesota's 2023 legislative session, state lawmakers advanced two potential laws: the establishment of a Health Care Affordability Board, and a requirement for hospitals to create specific committees to set minimum nurse staffing levels, which was part of the Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act (KNABA). Before those bills hit Walz's desk, a Mayo Clinic lobbyist sent an email to Walz and other state leaders threatening to move a "significant" investment out of Minnesota if those two "extremely problematic" proposals were made law. That significant investment turned out to be Mayo Clinic's $5 billion "Bold.
Forward. Unbound. in Rochester" expansion, which involves the construction of five new buildings in downtown Rochester by 2030.
The Legislature ultimately did not send the Mayo-opposed proposals to Walz's desk, but Walz did sign a narrowed-down version of KNABA that established a student loan forgiveness program for nurses and directed the state to conduct a nursing workforce report to see why nurses are leaving the profession. The Minnesota Nurses Association, the nursing union that backed KNABA, criticized Walz's role in the downfall of that bill. "Nurses denounce Gov.
Tim Walz for his abdication of good government and acquiescence to anti-democratic and anti-labor corporate bullies," Mary Turner, the former MNA president, said in a statement. "By allowing corporate executives to dictate our public policy behind closed doors, Gov. Walz has made clear to Minnesotans that their democratic process does not work for them, but for the wealthy and powerful few.
" At Mayo Clinic's official announcement of the Unbound expansion in November 2023, Walz said Mayo's plan is "going above and beyond." "It’s not lost on myself, our administration or the people of Minnesota — you choose to make that investment in Rochester, Minnesota," Walz said. "You made a conscious effort as you looked elsewhere, where you could go, you said 'No, this is the best place.
'" At a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday — Walz's first appearance as Harris' running mate — Harris highlighted Walz's health care policy record. In addition to abortion access, Harris touted the passage of paid family leave in Minnesota in 2023. (It goes into effect in 2026.
) During Walz's time in Congress, Harris said he "cast one of the critical votes to pass the Affordable Care Act" in 2010, "which of course gave health insurance to tens of millions of Americans." Other health care policies enacted under Walz's governorship include: Liebling said a place where progress could be made is on deprivatizing Minnesota's public health insurance programs, which she said is one of her goals as a legislator. "To my knowledge, the governor hasn't opposed that, but he hasn't been involved in it," she said.
"His administration, I think, is warming up to that idea, but it's been a long haul.".
