via Daily Kos: A Historic Step Forward: Why I’m Supporting The Senate Health Reform Bill, by Sen. Al Franken
In 1917, progressives in America began a quest to create a system to provide health insurance to all Americans. Today, almost a century later, we are poised to take a giant step toward realizing that goal. Viewed through the lens of history, this is truly an amazing accomplishment.
To earn my vote, health insurance reform must improve access to affordable health care for Minnesota families – and this bill clears that bar with room to spare. This bill does not fix all the problems with our health care system, and I will not stop working to improve the quality and lower the costs of health care for all Americans. But progressives can be proud of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and take a large measure of credit for important provisions it will codify as the law of the land.
Requiring insurance companies to spend 85% of premiums on actual health services — not administrative costs, TV ads, or gargantuan CEO bonuses — is a big victory. Senator Rockefeller and I worked hard to get that provision included because it holds insurance companies accountable and will put an end to exploding premiums and obscene profits – a huge win for progressives…
Be sure to follow the above link to read the rest of Franken’s Daily Kos diary entry.
Of course, Franken has been on my radar as of late. Last week I posted a clip from Franken’s former life as a brilliant satirist. His “Supply Side Jesus” is well worth watching if you haven’t seen it.
More relevant to the present health care reform debate in the Senate, I published a post over at Care2 entitled, “You Go, Al Franken!“ Published Dec. 18, the blog entry imparts some of his senate floor highlights from the week: Franken’s verbal smack down of Republican Sen. John Thune & a procedural STFU for Sen. Joe Lieberman.
This entry was posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 3:04 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
