Democratic Ob/Gyn Running for Open House Seat in Minnesota

As part of MedPage Today‘s occasional series on healthcare clinicians running for office, Washington Correspondent Shannon Firth spoke with Kelly Morrison, MD, an ob/gyn and Democratic state lawmaker running for an open U.S. House seat in Minnesota. Morrison’s opponent is Tad Jude (R).

The interview, which was conducted with a press person present, has been edited for length and clarity.

After abortion bans began to take effect in other states, what did you hear from your colleagues?

Morrison: After the Dobbs decision, there was a big movement here in Minnesota to pass protections for reproductive rights. Minnesotans elected pro-choice majorities to both the Minnesota House and the Minnesota Senate and the governor’s office, in part to ensure that that happened.

I trained in Chicago, so I have colleagues spread across the country. They are terrified. They’re afraid for their patients, for their livelihoods, and some of them are afraid they’re going to go to jail for providing healthcare.

There’s reporting coming out of Texas that more than 70% of ob/gyns in Texas don’t feel that they can provide full healthcare to their patients. Some of these decisions have to be made in real-time, rapidly, and for physicians to feel like they need to be consulting with their hospital’s legal team is quite frankly, absurd, because we’re putting people’s lives at risk.

Minnesota passed comprehensive legislation to help protect access to abortion. During the recent vice presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) called provisions of Minnesota’s laws relating to abortions later in pregnancy “fundamentally barbaric.” What would you say to Vance?

Morrison: I would say that banning access to life-saving healthcare is what’s barbaric. And I would remind him that the vast majority of abortions occur in the first trimester of pregnancy, and in those very, very rare instances where a woman may need an abortion later in pregnancy, it is almost always due to a very tragic and devastating situation where something has gone very wrong with the pregnancy or the patient.

And in those horrible circumstances, people should be able to make those decisions with their family and with their doctor or their healthcare team. JD Vance does not need to be involved in those decisions.

Vice President Kamala Harris said that if she becomes president she would reinstate the protections of Roe v. Wade if given the opportunity. But Congress may not have the votes to pass such a law. What else can be done by Congress to protect access to abortion?

Morrison: If we can’t enshrine reproduction freedom for all Americans, we’re going to have to find ways to make sure that people can get the care that they need. This is one area where the military has led the way. They’ve made sure that their service members can afford to travel to receive the care they need if they’re in a state that restricts access.

We also need to work on educating the American public about what the repercussions of these bans are. We’re seeing fewer medical students apply to medical schools in states that have passed bans and ob/gyn residents choosing to match only in states that don’t have bans.

Many of the states that have passed the most restrictive bans were already maternal health deserts, and the bans are exacerbating the problem. We need to be doing everything that we can to ensure both that people have access to the care that they need, and also that there are providers who can provide that care for them.

You were named “Legislator of the Year” by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Tell me more about your efforts to improve access to mental health care, including across state lines, and to ensure that people who are incarcerated receive better care?

Morrison: I think we all agree we are really strained in our access to mental health care. So finding ways to increase access to the number of providers that we have, and to ensure that they are being paid adequately for their work is incredibly important.

In Minnesota, we passed the Psychology Interjurisdictional Compact, which is an interstate compact that allows psychologists to practice telepsychology across state lines.

I’ve also worked to set up screenings in our schools to identify kids who are at risk for mental health problems, and connect them with the resources that they need. And with the help of a Republican who lost a child to an opioid overdose, I passed a bill to ensure that we have naloxone (Narcan) in every school building in Minnesota so that no one dies of an overdose on school grounds.

What else have you and your colleagues in the legislature done to address substance use disorders?

Morrison: We have an opioid epidemic. We’re losing 100,000 Americans a year to overdose deaths. There’s been a recent dip in those numbers, but we need to continue to invest in our workforce so that people can have access to the treatment that they need.

I passed a bill that exempts providers of prenatal care from being mandatory reporters of women who use substances during their pregnancy. We need to get away from having providers police their patients. We need to make sure that patients trust their providers so that they can get into treatment and get the care they need. And so that they can have the best possible pregnancy outcomes.

As a legislator, you also helped pass the Alec Smith Emergency Insulin Act. Why was that law important?

Morrison: Alec Smith was a young man who had just gone off his parents’ insurance because he turned 26. He was just starting out in life and was doing great, but couldn’t afford his very expensive insulin, and he didn’t want to ask his parents for help.

So he started to ration his insulin, and he died. So his mother, Nicole Smith-Holt, an unbelievable advocate for families who have people with insulin-dependent diabetes, wanted to ensure that nothing like that ever happens again.

I helped negotiate the final bipartisan bill that ensures that people have emergency access to insulin in Minnesota if they’re in a similar position to what Alec Smith was in.

Minnesota has been ranked the best state for healthcare in the country. What does Minnesota get right when it comes to healthcare? And where is there more work to be done?

Morrison: Minnesota does have a really proud tradition of excellence in healthcare. We have the Mayo Clinic and several really outstanding health systems and medical schools. We also have unacceptable racial disparities.

One of the bills I’m most proud of is a bill that had bipartisan support to extend Medicaid from 60 days to 12 months postpartum here in Minnesota. Again, given the racial disparities that exist in maternal and infant morbidity and mortality, it’s incredibly important that new moms and their babies have access to the healthcare that they need.

I also passed a bipartisan bill called the Prescription Drug Price Transparency Act that required pharmaceutical companies to report to our Department of Health why they price certain high-priced drugs the way that they do.

That bill informed another piece of legislation, for which I was the chief author, which created Minnesota’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board, an independent board that’s empowered to set upper payment limits for high-cost drugs that present an affordability challenge.

This is the maximum, I believe, that can be done on the state level. The Biden administration passing the 10 drugs that Medicare can now negotiate is a huge first step. We need to expand that list to save our healthcare system money and make the drugs that people need more accessible.

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