Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken (D) on Tuesday aforementioned 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 old age and meliorate access to mental health screenings, among other proposals to increment benefits for veterans.
Franken besides said that his opposer, 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 commode significantly lift 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 feeling pieces by incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and opponent Rep. Rick Noriega (D-Texas) that addressed health care issues. Summaries seem below.
John Cornyn, Morning News: Proposals to expand access to wellness care "should be rooted in preserving and strengthening the important patient-doctor relationship" by "making health insurance more low-priced, not increasing the government's role," Cornyn writes. He adds, "Government should allow incentives to both patient and provider," allow small businesses to form association health plans and promote the adoption of electronic health records. "We toilet turn health care, in steps, over to government control and learn to live with mediocrity, or we tin can work in a bipartizan fashion to extend benefits of on an individual basis owned health insurance to those uninsured," Cornyn writes, adding, "I believe the latter approach will provide greater access and wagerer quality wellness care" (Cornyn, Dallas Morning News, 8/20).
Rick Noriega, Morning News: "Families in this state are facing a health maintenance crisis because Washington isn't looking out for them," and the U.S. must "unite around the finish 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 workings for them -- non for Big Insurance and the Washington lobbyists," adding, "Texans deserve real health care security for their families, lowered costs for employers, and more transparence and answerableness than our current system provides" (Noriega, Dallas Morning News, 8/20).
Reprinted with kind permission from hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email pitch at hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.
