U.S. Senate Candidates in Minnesota and Texas Discuss Health Care Issues

Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken (D) on Tuesday said that the U.S. should guarantee veterans lifetime medical care, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports. In a speech to veterans at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Hopkins, Minn., Franken said that he would seek to reduce the backlog of disability claims filed with the Department of Veterans Affairs by half in two years and improve access to mental health screenings, among other proposals to increase benefits for veterans.

Franken also said that his opponent, incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), voted 18 times against increased benefits for veterans, adding that "what was more important to him was tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires."

Coleman spokesperson Luke Friedrich said, "Sen. Coleman has demonstrated that you can significantly raise benefits without raising taxes -- as he did with over 30 votes that have increased veterans' funding by nearly 70% during his time in office" (Lopez, Minneapolis Star Tribune, 8/20).

Texas U.S. Senate Candidates Address Health Care Issues in Op-Eds
The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday published opinion pieces by incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and opponent Rep. Rick Noriega (D-Texas) that addressed health care issues. Summaries appear below.

• John Cornyn, Morning News: Proposals to expand access to health care "should be rooted in preserving and strengthening the important patient-doctor relationship" by "making health insurance more affordable, not increasing the government's role," Cornyn writes. He adds, "Government should provide incentives to both patient and provider," allow small businesses to form association health plans and promote the adoption of electronic health records. "We can turn health care, in steps, over to government control and learn to live with mediocrity, or we can work in a bipartisan fashion to extend benefits of individually owned health insurance to those uninsured," Cornyn writes, adding, "I believe the latter approach will provide greater access and better quality health care" (Cornyn, Dallas Morning News, 8/20).
  
  
• Rick Noriega, Morning News: "Families in this state are facing a health care crisis because Washington isn't looking out for them," and the U.S. must "unite around the goal of accessible, affordable health care for every Texas family," Noriega writes. He proposes an expansion of SCHIP, the establishment of an "insurance connector" to match individuals with health plans, increased adoption of EHRs, tax credits to help small businesses purchase health insurance for employees and a system to rate physicians. He writes, "Texans deserve a health care system that works for them -- not for Big Insurance and the Washington lobbyists," adding, "Texans deserve real health care security for their families, lowered costs for employers, and more transparency and accountability than our current system provides" (Noriega, Dallas Morning News, 8/20).