St. Paul, Minn. — DFL U.S. Senator Al Franken says he “feels very good” about the progress of health care reform in the Senate.

Franken said he still favors a government-run health insurance plan known as a “public option” as part of a health care overhaul, but he says a compromise being discussed in the Senate sets up government-negotiated non-profit health plans that would compete with plans from insurance companies.

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On Tuesday evening, the U.S. Senate voted 54 to 45 against the Nelson-Hatch amendment, the Senate companion to the U.S. House’s Stupak amendment, which would eliminated abortion services in the health insurance exchange included in the heath reform bill being debated on Capitol Hill. Minnesota Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar voted against the measure, a vote that generated praise from reproductive health groups and church-state watchdog organizations.

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The Fond du Lac Reservation is receiving a $429,900 federal grant to help prevent and treat diabetes.

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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning why it is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is imprisoning people coming to the United States seeking asylum from persecution abroad.

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It was an offhand remark in a speech filled with observations about political culture. But a question posed recently by Minnesota-born author Norm Ornstein at a University of Minnesota Humphrey Institute event is one far too often overlooked as the contentious health care reform debate rolls on.

Although everyone has focused on increased health insurance costs if reform passes, what happens if it does not?
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Sen. Al Franken, who was excoriated by Planned Parenthood of Minnesota in the 2008 campaign for what it called a “misogynist” piece of satire written years before, stepped up to the plate loudly for abortion rights on Monday during an emotional Senate debate on health care reform.

At issue was a proposed amendment, similar to one in the House, that would make it illegal for a private insurance company to cover abortions if that company’s policy is purchased with the aid of a federal subsidy. Abortion foes argued the measure upheld long-standing restrictions against federal money being used to fund abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. Franken and other abortion rights supporters said the amendment went beyond that, and would mean denying women coverage for a procedure already covered by many insurance plans.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate today effectively eliminated an amendment that would have dramatically expanded restrictions on health insurance coverage for abortion.

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There was a time, in the early 1990s, when health insurance companies devoted more than 95 cents out of every premium dollar to paying doctors and hospitals for taking care of their members. No more. Since President Bill Clinton’s health reform plan died 15 years ago, the health insurance industry has come to be dominated by a handful of insurance companies that answer to Wall Street investors, and they have changed that basic math. Today, insurers only pay about 81 cents of each premium dollar on actual medical care. The rest is consumed by rising profits, grotesque executive salaries, huge administrative expenses, the cost of weeding out people with pre-existing conditions and claims review designed to wear out patients with denials and disapprovals of the care they need the most.

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In January, I met a wounded vet with severe post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, at an Inaugural event in Washington. Luis Montalvan had been an Army intelligence officer in 2003, when he was gravely wounded in Anbar Province. When I met Luis, he was walking with a cane and accompanied by his service dog, a beautiful golden retriever named Tuesday. Luis told me that without Tuesday he couldn’t have made it to the event.

Tuesday can anticipate Luis’s panic attacks by changes in his breathing or perspiration and then avert them by nuzzling Luis and calming him down. Tuesday reminds his master to take his medications. He can wake Luis from debilitating dreams. After hearing about all that Tuesday does for Luis, not the least of which is elevating his sense of well-being, I made it my business to learn everything I could about service dogs and veterans.

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WASHINGTON – Franni Franken pauses during her lunch at a Mexican restaurant on Capitol Hill to extract a green flash drive from her purse.

“This is my homework,” she says, as she twirls around the tiny digital memory device that holds a research report on youth rehabilitation. It is a reference to a nightly ritual with her husband, Sen. Al Franken, called “homework time,” when the two stop what they are doing to sit side by side in their living room perusing legislation, research reports, voting records and news clips.

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