Candidate Positions on Health Care

Question: Do you favor or oppose universal health care?

Dean Barkley

ANSWER OPTION: Favor CANDIDATE'S POSITION: We should open up the Medicare system to all Americans on a cost basis. Let the private sector compete with the public sector and see who wins. When consumers have real choices--and not a monopoly dominated by a few big companies--prices will go down.

Norm Coleman

ANSWER OPTION: Oppose CANDIDATE'S POSITION: According to a posting on Sen. Coleman's Web site he is opposed to a single payer health care system and supports affordable health care through (1) Health Savings Accounts (2) Association Health Plans (3) Medicare Part D and (4) income-based tax credits for individuals and families without employer-based health insurance. (More Info)

Al Franken

ANSWER OPTION: Favor CANDIDATE'S POSITION: In a written statement to MPR Franken said, "My number one domestic priority is to get us to universal health care. We spend 16% of our GDP on health care; no other industrialized country spends more than 11%. Yet we cover only 82% of our people; they all cover 100% of theirs. "The first thing we should do, and we should do it immediately, is cover every kid in America by essentially expanding Medicare to include everyone 18 and under. And, by the way, Medicare should really be Medicare - we shouldn't be throwing away Medicare dollars by overpaying the insurance companies to cherry-pick the healthiest seniors to cover. "There are several feasible options being used around the world for covering everyone else, including a single-payer system, and my priority is to get to universal health care as quickly as possible, even if this means temporarily adopting a mixed system or a system that allows states some flexibility how they cover their citizens." (More Info)