Op/Ed - Your turn: Now Coleman supports health care?

2007-10-12

Source: St. Cloud Times, Brian Melendez,

Senator Norm Coleman ironically claimed, in his Monday editorial on improving access to health care, that the "the time for solutions is now." It's nice that Senator Coleman is finally on board with health care reform - just one year from when he is hoping to get re-elected.

But his sudden and convenient willingness to listen to Minnesotans on "how to change and improve our health care system" can't obscure his total inaction on expanding access or improving our health care system throughout his five years in the Senate.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, the number of uninsured Americans has increased substantially. After falling during the Clinton presidency, the number of uninsured people soared to 47 million in 2006. Most Americans without health insurance are in working families. They often don't have insurance either because their jobs don't offer it, or because they simply can't afford it.

Even people with health insurance face enormous financial obstacles to getting care. For example, more than half of personal bankruptcies are related to medical bills. Of those who filed bankruptcy as a result of medical bills, most had health insurance at the time.

Despite this disturbing trend, Coleman sat on his hands. According to Congressional Quarterly, from 2003-06, Coleman stood 90 percent of the time with a president who refused to address the health care crisis. Coleman actually voted in 2003 to cut $10 billion from Medicaid, a program that provides health care for our nation's most vulnerable seniors, children and people with disabilities.

Coleman continues to protect big companies over the interests of Minnesotans.

He voted twice against protecting individuals with high medical bills in bankruptcy filings in 2005. And now he is proposing a tax credit "that can go directly to the private insurer of your choice."

Never mind that tax credits proposed by the Bush administration would still leave health insurance unaffordable for modest and low-income Americans, or that this "solution" does nothing to lower the cost of health care.

Coleman is again trying to pull a fast one. He wants us to believe, one year from the next election, that he is taking action to fix health care — even though he sat silent, actually voting to cut health care for children, seniors and people with disabilities, while millions of Americans lived every day without much-needed health coverage.

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