Stillwater, Minnesota – Vice President Kamala Harris’ choice of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate makes health care a front-runner in the final race The November presidential election.
Walz, a 60-year-old high school teacher and football coach, has a record of supporting left-leaning health care initiatives during his two terms as governor and while serving in the US House of Representatives from 2007 to 2019. He also leads. The state is at the heart of the health care industry: Minnesota is home to the nation’s largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group, and one of its most famous hospital systems, the Mayo Clinic.
Republicans have used his record to launch the Harris-Walz ticket that has gone too far on health care, while Democrats say Walz’s efforts to lower drug costs and preserve access to abortion are core issues that attract voters. swing. Either way, her election underscores the status of health care as an election issue, highlighting the height of the nation’s battle over abortion access as well as deep voter anger over the cost of abortion. increasing health care.
Many of Walz’s positions are related to Harris’s.
He is sick access to abortionsigning legislation to unify abortion rights in the state, and in March visited a Planned Parenthood clinic with the vice president.
He sponsored congressional legislation empowering the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare, the health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. The Biden administration on Aug. 15. reduced prices of 10 drugs in a program that appears in negotiations between the government and drug dealers. Lower costs will begin in 2026.
As governor, Walz signed legislation in 2020 to reduce the cost of insulin from $35 a month for eligible residents who need the medicine urgently. Two years later, President Joe Biden did the same for all Medicare patients.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Walz ordered that masks be worn in many indoor public spaces. He extended the stay-at-home order in 2020, prompting former President Donald Trump to declare “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” on X, a social platform that used to be called Twitter.
“He’s a thinker when it comes to issues and policy,” said Andy Slavitt, a former UnitedHealth executive and former director of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. “He’s not an ideological person. He’s an independent thinker who cares about the underprivileged,” said Slavitt, who served as a senior adviser on the Biden administration’s COVID response team.
Walz also advocated for fertility treatments, sharing his story of how he and his wife, Gwen, relied on them to get pregnant. Because in vitro fertilization is at increased risk by some opponents of abortion, despite its widespread popularity, his first-hand knowledge of the challenges of childbirth adds political muscle.
“Walz has been vocal and passionate about her experience with IVF, and it’s connecting with people on both sides of the aisle,” said Christopher Sheeron, founder and president of Action for Health, a national nonprofit. profit.
The Minnesota Republican says Walz’s health status will work against the Democratic ticket. They criticize his 2021 covid vaccine or regular testing requirement for government employees, his support for laws regulating abortion rights, his support recreational marijuana legal and a bill he signed to extend social security to some undocumented immigrants.
“Under Gov. Walz, we’ve seen one of the most aggressive, fringe agendas in the country. While Americans are looking for unity, Walz has a track record of implementing policies extremists that divide us further,” the Minnesota Republican leader. Senator Mark Johnson said in a statement. “He set our state on a path toward government-run health care and championed restrictive health care mandates that limit Minnesotans’ access to life-saving care.”
Minnesotan Tracy Mitchell said that before Walz’s election, she was willing to support former President Donald Trump in November because she believed he would do more to reduce health care costs.
The announcement confirmed his decision: He’s voting for Trump.
“I have three kids, and health care is expensive,” said Mitchell, 38, of Ham Lake, while visiting Stillwater, Minnesota, with her family. I am the program operations manager for a mental health clinic.
“The way he’s handled COVID, and in terms of health care, I think he’s gone too far,” he said.
However, Democrats are hoping that a greater focus on health care will give them an advantage in the election, contributing to the election on pocketbook issues in swing states.
Forty-eight percent of Republicans or Republican-leaning adults said affording health care is the biggest problem in the country, according to a May poll by the Pew Research Center . Sixty-five percent of Democrats or Democratic-leaning adults agreed.
Concerns over illegal immigration, the federal budget deficit, gun violence and drug addiction.
Three out of four adults say they are very worried or somewhat worried about being able to pay unexpected medical bills, according to a survey conducted in January and February by KFF, a non-profit organization health news including KFF Health News.
“Republicans have always suffered because they talk about health care in terms of the economy,” said William Pierce, a senior director at APCO Worldwide, a global consulting and advocacy firm, and a former GOP aide. . “Democrats are talking about it as a personal issue. The appointment of Walz gives them a big opportunity to push it hard.”
Walz’s partner on the GOP ticket, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has little experience with health care issues. But he sought to express concern about rising costs and barriers to care.
During a recent visit to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Vance said the government must do more to preserve access to health care in rural America.
In a July 2017 op-ed published by The New York Times, before running for the Senate as a Republican, Vance expressed support for some provisions of the Affordable Care Act and criticized the GOP’s push to repeal the law because, he said, the proposal “withdraws its subsidies for the poor.”
Since joining the Trump ticket, Vance has aligned himself with Trump’s views on the ACA — a law that Trump tried to repeal while he was president.
“The difference is between those who defend the ACA and those who would repeal it; Walz’s election makes the difference as clear as ever,” said Anthony Wright, incoming director of Families USA, a nonpartisan organization focused on access to care. of health. possible.
Vance supported allowing the federal government negotiates with Medicare drug prices – a rare point of agreement on health policy with Democrats.
Like Trump, he opposes equal care for transgender children. But he has taken a more assertive stance than the former president on abortion — a vulnerable figure Democrats have sought to exploit. Public support for abortion rights has increased since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and many Republican-led states moved to impose stricter restrictions.
Both the Democratic and Republican campaigns are reassessing their positions on health care. California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis’ super PAC, Californians for Choice, released an ad this month saying Vance supports a statewide ban on abortion, which “takes away our freedom.”
Like Trump, Vance has recently said that states should decide specific abortion policies, but he has previously supported banning abortion nationwide.
However, the Trump campaign called Walz “Tampon Tim” because of the state law he signed that requires menstrual products to be available to “all menstruating students in regularly used restrooms.” are students in grades 4 through 12, according to the policy made by the school district.”
A recent Trump campaign ad called Walz “very weird. He’s very extreme.”
But Walz’s addition to the ticket has energized Democratic voters on health care issues like Angel Palm, 32, a life coach for people with disabilities who lives in Fridley, Minnesota.
“My son is autistic and has medical expenses. It is very important,” he told KFF Health News. “I’m very surprised.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on life issues and is one of the main programs operating in KFF – an independent source of health policy research, polls and journalism.
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