Franken and Klobuchar react to Senate health deal

Posted at 1:10 PM on December 19, 2009 by Tom Scheck (6 Comments)
Filed under: Campaign 2008: U.S. Senate, Campaign 2010

Here's DFL Sen. Al Franken's reaction to the health care deal reached by Senate Democrats:

"Throughout this debate I have tried to keep focused on the concerns I hear as I travel Minnesota," said Sen. Franken."Minnesota families tell me they are afraid of losing coverage because of a pre-existing condition, going bankrupt due to health care crisis, or not being able to afford any coverage at all as their premiums skyrocket."

"With the release of this manager's amendment and the announcement that we now have the votes required to pass it, we're on the verge of being able to cover millions of Americans and stop the explosion of health care costs for families. I don't want to oversell what this bill will do, but I am confident it will make some very important improvements in people's lives."

DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar's office also released a statement saying the proposal includes several provisions that Klobuchar fought for:

"This final package includes many provisions that I've fought to include for months," said Klobuchar. "The EARLY Act helps young women battling breast cancer, the Medicare fraud amendments will save billions of dollars for our taxpayers, the one-year delay in implementation of the medical device tax was important to our job-creating medical device industry, and, most importantly, the value index I authored for Medicare payments remains in the bill, as do other important cost reform measures."

Comments (6)

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Posted by About Time | December 19, 2009 3:20 PM

It is too bad that the bill locks in the pharmaceutical industries high prices and forces Americans to buy health insurance. It seems like too much of a sellout to the health insurance and big pharma lobbies not to mention all of the pork handed out to get 60 votes. This bill is not the answer - it is more like business as usual.

Posted by Tim W | December 21, 2009 1:26 PM

Ditto to Tim W and once again "consensus" at the cost of women's reproductive rights.

Posted by E.G. | December 21, 2009 2:01 PM

Unfortunately, it's really hard to tell if Democrats just want SOMETHING passed out of desperation or if they truly believe this bill is good enough. Covering 30 million more people by just MAKING them buy insurance (albeit w/ subsidies for some) is a sham of a 'solution.' And like the Medicare buy-in, there doesn't seem to be much to keep insurance companies from jacking up rates as they wish...even the pre-existing condition 'ban' appears to just not allow them to drop you, but they can still raise your rates drastically.

Obama and the Democratic leadership REALLY failed on this whole fiasco.

Posted by Steve J | December 21, 2009 2:37 PM

Yes, it certainly smells like an effort to pass something regardless of what it is and then spinning it for only the positive points that it may contain in the interest of not having to deal with the sense of disappointment that comes with not succeeding at the first go around. Too bad nobody has the gumption to pull back and start over again. This moment in time is way too important not to, but sadly, corporate interests and the wealthy elite have bought up too much of our government in the last few decades. at the great expense of the citizenry.

Posted by aredant | December 21, 2009 10:24 PM

The Senator's have a lot of credibility.
It is a shame to waste it on candy coating really bad legislation.
If one Senator from Conneticut can stonewall a nation into malicious protectionist pro-pharma and insurance industry amendments, Why can not two from Minnesota stonewall for true reform?

Posted by Aaron Mood | December 22, 2009 4:00 AM

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