Senator Smith believes that every person deserves affordable, high-quality health care. As a member of the Senate Health Committee and a leader in the bipartisan Rural Health Caucus, Sen. Smith is fighting to protect, improve, and expand comprehensive health care coverage for Minnesotans.
A top priority for Sen. Smith is addressing the high cost of health care. Too many Minnesotans are burdened by the high cost of their health care coverage, and others are going without insurance or prescription medications. Sen. Smith is working with her colleagues on both sides of the aisle to address the underlying issues that make health care expensive, starting with the high price of prescription drugs.
While working to make health care more affordable, Sen. Smith is also working to ensure that every Minnesotan has access to mental health care, which she believes is an essential part of comprehensive health coverage. She is working to enforce federal laws that require equitable coverage of mental health and medical care, and she is fighting for expanded access to mental health services across the age continuum.
Sen. Smith also opposes any efforts to limit coverage for Minnesotans, slash Medicaid or Medicare, deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions, and interfere with a woman’s right to make decisions about her own health care. Minnesotans and people across this country rely on their health coverage, and believes that any attempt to take that away is unacceptable.
Finally, Sen. Smith is a champion for rural communities, who face unique barriers that limit their access to quality, affordable health care. As co-chair of the bipartisan Rural Health Caucus, Sen. Smith is working with her colleagues to eliminate the health disparities between rural and urban communities.
Latest Releases
U.S. Senator Tina Smith Unveils Legislation to Repeal the Comstock Act
WASHINGTON, D.C. [6/20/24] —Today, U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.) introduced a bill to repeal an arcane 1873 law, called the Comstock Act, that Republicans and anti-choice extremists want to misuse to ban abortion nationwide. Comstock has been cited recently by Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in oral arguments during the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA and invoked in Project 2025 – broadly seen as a roadmap for a future Trump administration – as a way for an extremist, anti-choice administration to use unilateral executive action to effectively ban abortion nationwide. “The Comstock Act is a 150-year-old zombie law banning abortion that’s long been relegated to the dustbin of history. But extremist Republicans and Trump judges have seized upon the idea of misusing Comstock to bypass Congress and strip women nationwide of their reproductive freedoms. When MAGA Republicans say they intend to use the Comstock Act to control women’s decisions and enact a backdoor national abortion ban, we should believe them. Now that Trump has overturned Roe, a future Republican administration could try to misapply this 150-year-old Comstock law to deny American women their rights, even in states where abortion rights are protected by state law. “This is why I’m introducing legislation to repeal Comstock. It is too dangerous to leave this law on the books; we cannot allow MAGA judges and politicians to control the lives of American women,” said Senator Smith. The Comstock laws are a set of 1800s laws meant to ban the mailing or shipping of every obscene, lewd, indecent, article, matter, thing or device, with the goal of restricting
U.S. Senator Tina Smith Applauds Biden Admin Move to Eliminate Medical Debt from Credit Reports
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) celebrated a new proposed rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) shielding consumers’ credit scores from being impacted by medical debt. Today’s announcement came after Senator Smith, along with 9 of her colleagues, urged the agency to take action. According to the CFPB’s own report, there is over $88 billion in medical debt on consumer credit records. “You can’t choose when you get sick – it happens whether we like it or not. You shouldn’t be punished with a lower credit score just because you needed medical care,” said Senator Smith.“This move by the Biden Administration puts the American people first, and I’m glad they listened to me and my colleagues who pushed for this new rule.” Senator Smith, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, called attention to the growing crisis of medical debt in a letter to the CFPB in 2022. The move by the CFPB compliments actions by the Minnesota State Legislature, who passed the Debt Fairness Act as part of a large omnibus bill in May of this year to address the impact medical debt has on Minnesotans. ###
U.S. Senators Tina Smith, Cassidy, Cardin, Thune Reintroduce Bill to Remove Barriers to Telemental Health Care
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) joined her colleagues Senators Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), John Thune (R-SD) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) to reintroduce the bipartisan Telemental Health Care Access Act to remove barriers to telemental health services for Medicare beneficiaries. Specifically, the bill removes the requirement that Medicare beneficiaries be seen in person within six months of being treated for mental health services through telehealth. In 2020, Congress permanently expanded access for Medicare patients to be treated virtually for mental health services. Unfortunately, it also included an arbitrary requirement that would require the patient to be seen in-person before they could receive telemental services. The Telemental
U.S. Senators Tina Smith, Tom Cotton Reintroduce Bipartisan Legislation to Boost U.S. Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Senators Tina Smith (D-MN) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) reintroduced bipartisan legislation to reduce dependence on foreign pharmaceutical manufacturing and boost production in the U.S. The pandemic exposed our nation’s dependence on other countries for essential prescription drugs. Seventy-seven percent of key pharmaceutical ingredients come from overseas, including from China, threatening the security of the supply chain and leading to shortages of essential prescription drugs. The American Made Pharmaceuticals Act would reduce our dependence on foreign countries for pharmaceuticals by boosting production here at home. The legislation would create federal incentives to onshore manufacturing of essential medicine, while taking
U.S. Senators Smith, Padilla, Tillis, Ernst Launch Bipartisan Mental Health Caucus
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senators Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) announced the launch of their bipartisan Senate Mental Health Caucus. Amidst a national mental health crisis, the Senate Mental Health Caucus will serve as a forum for Senators to collaborate on and promote bipartisan legislation and solutions, hold events to raise awareness of critical mental health issues, and destigmatize mental health. The caucus will work to improve prevention and early intervention efforts, expand the country’s mental health professional workforce, enhance our nation’s crisis response services, and increase access to evidence-based mental health treatment and common-sense solutions for all
Senators Smith, Daines Renew Push to Permanently Expand Telehealth Services
Washington – U.S. Senators Tina Smith (D-MN) and Steve Daines (R-MT) reintroduced their bipartisan Expanded Telehealth Access Act to make pandemic-driven expanded access to certain telehealth services under Medicare permanent. “The pandemic showed us that telehealth services are a lifeline for patients across Minnesota who may otherwise not be able to access the health care they need,” said Smith. “This legislation will ensure that patients who access physical and occupational therapists, audiologists, and speech language pathologists via telehealth can continue to get those services reimbursed permanently.” “In rural states like Montana, folks often have to drive long distances just to
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