Franken Vs. McFadden Debate: Thoughts On Affordable Care Act
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - WCCO hosted a debate between Democratic Sen. Al Franken and Republican challenger Mike McFadden Sunday at 10 a.m.
Here's the second question:
President Obama said repeatedly: "If you like your doctor, you can keep him." "If you like your policy, you can keep it." Politifact called it "Lie of the Year." Sen. Franken, you are a champion of the Affordable Care Act -- have you been lying to the people of Minnesota?
Franken: I have not. I didn't say those things. The president, I think, was engaged in some wishful thinking. Let's talk about what the Affordable Care Act has done in Minnesota. We've reduced by 40 percent the number of uninsured. Ninety-five percent of Minnesotans are now insured – second most in the country.
There were some problems, problems with the rollout, but let's make this clear. Mr. McFadden wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He's run on that the whole time … We have to fix the things that are wrong with it, but build on the things that are right. If you repealed it, we'd go back to square one and you wouldn't have people with preexisting conditions being able to get coverage without paying a penalty. Women would again have to pay more for their health care just because they're a woman for their insurance.
Mr. McFadden, you have called the Affordable Care Act a disaster and have proposed an alternative plan that keeps the most expensive and popular provisions of ACA, like no ban on preexisting conditions and no lifetime limits, but you wouldn't keep the mandate, which experts say is needed to keep costs down.
McFadden: We have a health care issue in this country. I mean, I know that as a business man. We've had it for a long time, but Obamacare is not the solution. 'It's a train wreck,' to quote Max Baucus, who's a democratic former senator.
The biggest lie of all was when the president and Al Franken said that this would make health care less expensive. That's not true. It's absolutely not true and I know that, because I'm out talking to people day in and day out.
I said the states can decide if they want to implement a mandate, but I don't want the federal government doing it. So, if Minnesota wants to say 'we want a mandate,' they can do that … I believe that the states are laboratories for experiment.
See the full answers on the video above.
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