Deputy Select Walz Health Care Policies in accordance with Harris

Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate. On health care, Walz’s policies align with Harris’s. From abortion rights to health care affordability to medical debt, he has sought to do at the state level what Harris aims to accomplish at the federal level.

Walz is in his second term as governor of Minnesota. He was a member of the US House of Representatives, representing Minnesota’s 1st congressional district, from 2007 to 2019.

In the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, Governor Tim Walz signed a bill in 2023 that protects people who seek or provide abortions in Minnesota. On the issue of abortion rights, Vice President Harris has also been an outspoken advocate. She has called on Congress to restore the protections provided by Roe v. Wade.

Walz has often defended his state’s record on patient access to affordable health care. The Governor’s Office announced last week that for the second year in a row, WalletHub ranked Minnesota number one in health care. To calculate the rankings, WalletHub uses a composite measure of 44 indicators under the headings of affordability, access and health outcomes.

The governor emphasized in 2020 the passage of a bill that he did more affordable insulin for Minnesotans, setting a $35 per month cap on out-of-pocket costs for eligible individuals. Similarly, under the Biden-Harris Administration, the out-of-pocket cost of insulin was capped at $35 a month for Medicare recipients as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in 2022. Harris intends to push for expand this provision to the commercial insurance sector if elected president.

Further, Walz has supported other IRA drug pricing provisions, including Medicare drug pricing negotiations. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services selected the top 10 best-selling prescription drugs for negotiation in August of last year. The agency will publish maximum fair prices for these drugs by September 1, 2024. Fifteen more drugs will be selected for negotiation in February 2025. Additionally, starting next year Medicare beneficiaries will have an annual cap of $2,000 in out-of-pocket costs for outpatient prescription drugs. Harris has expressed a desire to expand Medicare drug cost measures passed through IRAs to the commercial sector where most working Americans buy their insurance. Although Walz has not explicitly said he favors such an expansion, it appears to be consistent with his policies as governor.

To reduce disparities in access to health insurance coverage, Walz worked to ease the ease with which eligible state residents could purchase insurance. In January of this year, Walz’s office announced that a record number of Minnesotans, more than 146,000, had signed up for private health insurance plans using MNsure, which is the state’s official health insurance marketplace.

And as a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act, Walz has championed policies driven by the ACA like Medicaid expansion and protections for people with pre-existing conditions that allow them to buy insurance at community-rated premiums (the same price for everyone without medical insurance) and no lifetime cap.

Walz has long favored allowing all residents to buy into the state health insurance program MinnesotaCare, though that “public option” proposal has yet to be implemented. The concept of a public option maintains a role for private insurers, allowing a choice of plans offered by private insurers or a government-run or regulated health benefit plan. As a presidential candidate in 2019 and 2020, Harris supported a public option as part of her health care reform proposal.

Walz has signed into law other measures that are consistent with Harris’ policy goals, including legislation that eases the burden of medical debt on Minnesotans. Specifically, it prohibits medical providers from withholding necessary medical care due to unpaid debt and prevents medical debt from affecting credit scores.

Harris supports efforts to use funds from the American Rescue Plan to buy medical debt from health care providers—an initiative that could lead to three million Americans having a total of $7 billion forgiven by 2026. Harris also calls stop including medical bills on individuals credit reports. Medical debt relief has come up during campaign rallies and may feature more prominently as a bread-and-butter policy issue in the weeks and months ahead. Associated Press reports.

In addition, Walz has followed transparency improvements in prescription drug costs. This June, the Governor’s office released an initial list of 364 drugs from 76 pharmaceutical manufacturers that will now be subject to detailed reporting, not only by drug manufacturers, but also by pharmacy benefit managers, wholesalers and pharmacies. The state government believes the information gathered will shed light on how prices are raised through markups as they move through the supply chain.

On gun control, which can be seen as a public health issue, Harris and Walz differed greatly at one time. In the mid-2010s, Walz was awarded an A+ rating by the National Rifle Association. But in recent years, he has shifted his stance, which now includes support for an assault weapons ban, according to Christian Science Monitor. Such a ban is a plank of the Harris campaign.

In sum, on a broad spectrum of health care policy, Harris and Walz seem to largely agree. Given the popularity among many constituents of the measures they advocate, these are likely to feature prominently at campaign rallies.