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Continued: Senate race: Which candidate supports seniors' drug benefit?
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Sen. Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger Al Franken are sparring over their support for Medicare's prescription drug benefits for seniors. Coleman recently released an ad reminding viewers that he "voted to give seniors prescription drugs," a reference to the Medicare Part D program authorizing the government to subsidize drugs for seniors.
The ad also says Coleman later "voted against his party to let Medicare negotiate with drug companies" to lower prices.
Near the end, the ad says Franken "opposed prescription drugs for seniors."
Franken held a news conference Friday to deny that he opposed Medicare prescription drugs for seniors and to argue that Coleman was never sincere about letting Medicare negotiate lower prices.
How do their assertions stack up?
Coleman's ad misleads when it claims Franken opposed outright prescription drugs for seniors.
But Coleman gets the benefit of the doubt on his motives when he voted to consider price negotiations.
Coleman's votes
The dispute stems from a 2003 Senate vote by Coleman to create the Part D program, which added government subsidized prescription drugs to Medicare benefits.
The program cut the out-of-pocket cost of drugs for many elderly people.
Negotiating drug prices
But the 2003 law also prohibited Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices, a decision Franken and Democrats say cost consumers and taxpayers millions.
Coleman's ad credits him for bucking his Republican Party in 2007 to let Medicare negotiate. He didn't vote directly to authorize negotiations, but to take up a bill to do so by ending a Senate filibuster.
Coleman was among six Republicans to join Democrats voting to take up the bill. The effort failed.
Franken on Friday accused Coleman of gamesmanship on the procedural vote, arguing that Republicans knew the vote would fail and that Coleman could safely break from his party and cast a politically useful vote.
Franken recited other votes and statements by Coleman as circumstantial evidence that he didn't really want to authorize Medicare price negotiations.
But Coleman's spokesman, Mark Drake, said Coleman has insisted that any measure authorizing price negotiations not deprive seniors of full access to a wide range of drugs.
He said the Veterans Administration, which negotiates prices, offers much less variety than Medicare. Coleman's campaign also says the senator seeks greater transparency on drug costs.
"Senator Coleman is for negotiating if it has those mix of things," Drake said.
Franken's intentions
On Coleman's claim that Franken opposed prescription drugs for seniors, his ad relies on statements attributed to Franken in news accounts earlier this year.
Drug benefit supported
But in those reports, Franken didn't say he opposed government subsidizing prescription drugs for seniors.
He said he would have voted against the 2003 bill that both provided those benefits and prohibited negotiations, insisting it was a creation of major drug companies.
"I'm for a prescription drug benefit," Franken said Friday. "A prescription drug benefit in which Medicare negotiates with the pharmaceuticals.
"I would have chained myself to the desk until we got negotiation," Franken said, rejecting the notion that defeat of the 2003 bill would have doomed a prescription drug package.
Franken's insistence on a drug benefit bill more to his liking doesn't make him an opponent of the benefit.
Drake says Franken lacked the temperament to compromise on passing the 2003 legislation.
Pat Doyle • 612-222-1210
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