We have good news! The first-in-the-nation Long COVID program run by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has been saved from elimination! This means #MEAction will be able to continue its work helping Minnesotans with ME/CFS, Long COVID and related conditions access vital home and community-based support services, as part of our multi-year grant.
Last month, the Minnesota House Health Finance and Policy committee unveiled a budget proposal, set by Republican leadership, that would have cut all of MDH’s funding for the Long COVID program! They gave only a few hours for the public to submit written testimony before calling an information-only hearing for the next morning.
#MEAction rapidly mobilized to help save the Long COVID program – mobilizing our community to write dozens of letters within hours, testifying at the hearing about how cutting the Long COVID program would be devastating to the local community, and sending letters to the Governor and House and Senate leadership explaining the value of the program.
Yesterday, a special session of the Minnesota legislature passed a health and human services budget that included $70 million in spending cuts across agencies, but did not include any of the House’s proposed cuts to Long COVID funding. Not a dime was cut from the Long COVID program!
Minnesota is the first and only State to make strategic investments in better understanding and addressing Long COVID and other infection-associated chronic conditions (IACCs), like ME/CFS, so abandoning the program – just as it was beginning to show long-term value – would have been a huge setback. It would also make it much harder to get other States to pursue similar initiatives if Minnesota decided to give up on addressing Long COVID.
#MEAction Minnesota is also working with Senator Scott Dibble’s office on ME/CFS legislation, which has been introduced but has not been voted on yet.
“Advocacy works,” said #MEAction Minnesota State Chapter Chair, Terri L. Wilder, in an interview with Sick Times. “I’m really proud of all the people who showed up. I’m really proud of the people who wrote letters, who called their representatives.”
How #MEAction Fought to Save the Long COVID Program:
Last month the Minnesota House unveiled a budget proposal that would have cut all of MDH’s funding for the Long COVID program. They gave only a few hours for the public to submit written testimony before calling for an information-only hearing for the next morning. The committee was not allowed to make changes to the budget, but time was allocated for the committee to hear public comments.
#MEAction Minnesota State Chapter Chair, Terri L. Wilder, put the word out to the community that public comments were urgently needed. In only a few hours, two dozen written comments were submitted to the committee by individuals impacted by Long COVID and ME/CFS, physicians and researchers and community leaders.
The numbers show how mobilizing our community worked: 55% of the written public comments submitted to the committee about the budget were responding to the cuts to the Long COVID program, and 100% of the public comments – submitted by individuals not representing an organization – were about cuts to the Long COVID program.
At the hearing, Terri Wilder urged legislators not to eliminate the Long COVID funding – saying it would be devastating to the communities they represent.
Terri testified: “At #MEAction, we hear from people every week desperate for help. We want to respond. We want to prevent more people from getting Long COVID so they can keep their jobs, raise their children, and live their lives. And for those who are unable to regain employment due to their disability, we want to make sure they have the home and community based services they need to live their lives in the best way possible.”
#MEAction Advocacy Director, Ben HsuBorger, caught a last-minute train to the state capitol building to testify at the hearing, stating “If you cut this funding, you won’t make the problem disappear. You’ll see us more—in ERs, in homeless shelters, and on suicide prevention lines.” He went on to say, “You’ll lose the expertise of those who know what works—and what doesn’t. You can push us into the shadows, but we’ll still be here. Maybe not in your schools, workplaces, or places of worship—but we are still here.”
Suzanne Wheeler, former president and co-founder of the Minnesota ME/CFS Alliance explained 
all the ways she had tried to respond to the myriad requests for help. “Long COVID is a health crisis,” she concluded, “and without the state funding the resources of the Minnesota Department of Health are inadequate to address the impact on Minnesotans.”
2 thoughts on “Minnesota’s Long COVID Funding Saved from Elimination”
I am so impressed by this victory! I hope that MEAction might host some kind of educational seminar that invites the advocates to talk about this experience and how it can be replicated in other states.
Wonderful news, thanks for all your hard work!
And thanks so much for sharing this news on the website! Sharing a link to this website (which I plan to do) is easier than linking to social media, especially those platforms which restrict what non-users can see. No one needs to log in to see this website!
Loved the “advocacy works” quote by Terri L. Wilder – very inspiring!