MINNEAPOLIS — 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.
But in a high-profile showdown with the Mayo Clinic last year over two bills to rein in health care costs and regulate hospital staffing, he backed down after the behemoth threatened to send billions in planned investments in the state elsewhere. The state nurse’s union called Walz’ concessions “abdication of good government and acquiescence to anti-democratic and anti-labor corporate bullies.”
