Dayton, Franken Mark 1 Year Of Health Care Reform
By Adam Thomas, NewsRadio 830 WCCO
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO/AP) -- Gov. Mark Dayton and Sen. Al Franken headlined an event Friday morning marking the one-year anniversary of federal health care overhaul.
"It was a pretty moving event, we had a lot of families there," Franken told WCCO's John Williams.
The families were there to share their stories of how the health care reform benefited them.
Franken says many of them were guaranteed coverage thanks to a provision which prevents insurance companies from discriminating against kids with pre-existing conditions.
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Survivors of cancer, AIDS and other diseases also shared their stories.
Kelly Carlson, a 22-year-old Hamline University student and former athlete who suffers from arthritis, said she'll be able to stay on her parents' health care plan until she turns 26.
"There are over 300,000 children in the United States who suffer from juvenile arthritis. The only way to treat it is to manage the symptoms," Carlson said at the news conference.
On a national level, GOP leaders are promising to continue to pull the reforms apart, but the larger message from Republican leaders is clear: Vote for us again in 2012, and we'll be sure to get the job done and repeal it once and for all.
House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell published an op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer earlier this week charging that Democrats broke their promises with respect to health care.
Boehner made the same criticisms in a video in which he says, "If there's a constant in the story of ObamaCare, it's broken promises."
Dayton and Franken were also joined by Reps. Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison at the State Capitol. The event was organized by the Minnesota Patient Advocacy Coalition, a patient group that supports the federal law.
(TM and © Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
