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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who was chosen Tuesday to be Vice President Harris’s running mate, brings a progressive approach to health care, with a focus on reducing costs. Walz has said his health policy priorities have been shaped in part by his personal experience. His father died of cancer when Walz was 19, leaving his mother drowning in medical debt.  (Weixel and Choi, 8/6)

A 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard, he spent his congressional tenure focused on veterans’ issues, including a two-year stint as ranking member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee starting in 2017. In 2018, he supported a House-passed bill that would renew health studies for veterans exposed to a herbicide known as Agent Orange. (Cohen, DeGroot and Raman, 8/6)

Health policy experts stress that a lot of what Harris and Walz could do in office largely depends on what happens in Congress. “This is still a divided country,” says Leighton Ku, PhD, MPH, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. “I don’t think Harris would be likely to have control of both houses of Congress, but all sorts of things can happen.” “No matter who the president is, reforming health care in the United States is a tall order given the power and lobbying abilities of the health insurance companies,” says Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health. (Miller, 8/6)

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, Walz signed a bill protecting abortion as a state law in January 2023, making the state a hub for the procedure in the Midwest. In March, Harris visited a Planned Parenthood health center that provides abortions. In April 2023, Walz signed the “trans refuge” bill that shields people seeking and providing gender-affirming care in Minnesota. That same day, he also approved a bill banning conversion therapy. (Brasch, 8/6)

As a member of Congress, Walz was vocal in his support for Medicare drug price negotiations. He called for increased research on cannabis and looked to extend Veterans Affairs' studies around toxin Agent Orange's effects on Americans. (Blake, 8/6)

As a staunch supporter of the Affordable Care Act, Walz has defended ACA-driven policies such as Medicaid expansion and protections for people with pre-existing conditions enabling them to buy insurance at community rated- premiums (same price for all without medical underwriting) and no lifetime caps. (Cohen, 8/6)

Even for the most progressive of politicians, money talks. And elite nonprofit hospitals can throw around a lot of money. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tuesday as her vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket, has cast himself as a progressive with a reputation for advancing policies like paid family and medical leave, free meals for children in school, and legalizing recreational marijuana. He’s been willing to take on some corporate interests in health care as well, provoking a lawsuit over a law that limited UnitedHealth Group’s role in the state’s Medicaid program and creating a prescription drug affordability board that can set limits on what medicines cost. (Zhang, Bannow and Herman, 8/6)

After the Mayo Clinic threatened to move a billion-dollar expansion out of state, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the Democratic lawmakers pulled back from controversial nurse staffing ratios last year and reoriented the legislation toward violence prevention and studying burnout among nurses. (Wehrwein, 8/6)