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Each of us served as Minnesota's governor for eight years. Whatever our differences, one issue we fundamentally agree upon is how critically important the University of Minnesota's academic health programs are to the long-term health and well-being of the state we call home.
The U's Medical School, School of Nursing, College of Pharmacy, School of Public Health, School of Dentistry and College of Veterinary Medicine are some of Minnesota's most important strategic assets. They are major contributors to our quality of life.
Since the founding of both the state and the university in the 1850s, the U has played a key role in Minnesota. We know the public good resulting from investments in the university includes an enormous return in quality health care, medical expertise and innovation, all of which help make Minnesota the best state in the country in which to live, work and raise a family.
Each year, the university graduates 80% of the doctors in Minnesota from its campuses in the Twin Cities and Duluth (and soon, hopefully, in St. Cloud). Today, 70% of all the physicians practicing in Minnesota trained at the U. Those doctors and other health professionals work and live in communities large and small throughout Minnesota, adding immeasurably to their social fabrics. The health care facilities that employ them boost those economies with their payroll dollars and other expenditures.
The U's expertise has played a leading role in advancing life-changing innovations in medical devices, biomedical technology and inventions that have improved our health and spawned hundreds of health care business, which have employed many Minnesotans and also recruited to our state thousands of highly skilled women and men. The U helps fuel our state's renowned "Medical Alley."
This is why we both testified before the Legislature in support of the university's request to control and reacquire its flagship hospitals from Fairview Health Services, prior to Fairview's intended merger with Sanford Health. As a core principle, the assets of our public research university should never be owned by an entity based in another state. We would be as opposed if an out-of-state equity fund or large national health system attempted to purchase the U's hospitals. The future of our flagship public university's medical facilities and health mission must be governed by a Minnesota entity. Period.
