AG Ellison Discusses Work to Protect Patients and Healthcare Affordability with MMA Board

July 16, 2025

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison met with the MMA Board of Trustees at its July 14 meeting and offered to regularly engage with the group to discuss the state’s healthcare issues.  

Ellison told the group that his office receives 85,000 calls a year, a large percentage of which deal with healthcare questions and concerns. “Our job is to help people afford their lives,” he said, and that includes paying their medical bills.  

Last year, Ellison’s office was active in advocating for passage of the Minnesota Debt Fairness Act, which bans denying medically necessary care due to unpaid bills, reporting medical debt to credit reporting agencies, and automatically transferring medical debt to one’s spouse after their passing. 

He said one of the reasons he ran for attorney general was because of insulin legislation that would help Minnesotans afford their medications. He cited the case of Alec Smith, a young man who died in 2017 as a result of rationing his insulin.  

Ellison said his office has also taken an interest in issues related to the social determinants of health -  particularly affordable housing. In addition, his office is actively engaged in monitoring federal executive orders and other actions that harm patients, including limits on access to transgender services and reductions in research funding.  

Board members asked him a variety of questions on health-related issues, including AI, private equity’s role in medicine, and the recently passed federal budget bill. 

Ellison informed the Board that his interest in working with the MMA is personal. He comes from a family of physicians. His father was a psychiatrist in Detroit, his brother is an internist in Detroit, and his wife used to practice in Colombia.