Franken pushes for health care passage
MPR's Jess Mador reports today that DFL Sen. Al Franken attended a rally of labor activists, Democrats and progressives in support of a health care overhaul bill moving through Congress. The rally, organized by Take Action Minnesota, is meant to send a message to Congress that something should be done on health care soon. The White House is negotiating with House and Senate leaders to come up with some sort of health care overhaul bill.
Franken, who has pushed for the House to pass the Senate bill and then pass a public option through reconciliation, said pushing the legislation currently being debated in Congress is better than starting over from scratch.
"I don't want to oversell this. I don't want to say that your premiums after going up and up and up are suddenly going to go down. But if we don't do anything, it's going to go that way and what we need to do is bend it this way to bring down the growth in the cost of health care."
You can listen to Franken's full speech here:
There were several people outside the rally protesting the health care bills. They held signs saying "Stop Obamacare" and complained that government spending is getting out of control.
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