Coleman: Bipartisanship needed on issues

Says Wellstone too partisan to compromise

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Republican senatorial candidate Norm Coleman called for a bipartisan approach in Congress in passing a Medicare prescription drugs benefit package during a campaign stop here Thursday.

Coleman toured the Windings, Inc., plant on North Valley Street, met with the news media and stopped at businesses up and down Broadway during a three-hour visit. A Minnesota DFL "observer" tagged along as Coleman made his stops.

"Part of the problem we have now is we've got Sen. Wellstone who is the most partisan member of the United States Senate on one side, and folks find themselves incapable of compromising," Coleman said. "I challenge my own party to find more common ground on this issue because seniors are simply demanding it."

Coleman said the issue "has to be solved in a bipartisan way, somewhere between the $600 million Democrat plan and the $370 million Republican plan. We're not going to do a $600 million [package] because you add up the cost of that over 10 years, it is astronomical, but we need to deliver a package prescription drug Medicare plan for seniors on Medicare."

The candidate said the gridlock over prescription drugs benefit raises a larger issue.

"What's essential health care? We live in the greatest economy in the world, even though it's struggling a bit today," Coleman said, "but we should have the capacity to make sure that everybody has access to health care."

The problem is, he said, "that even if you could get businesses to join together and create the plans they want, they are required to cover all the mandates under state law in MInnesota. So I think we've got to step back and decide what's essential health care and then figure out a way to make sure we can afford it."

Coleman, who once was Minnesota's chief prosecutor when he worked in the Attorney General's office, said Medicare fraud is another factor to consider in finding money for prescription drugs benefit packages and access to health care.

"Where we're making this huge outlay of public dollars, you've got to be sure it's being done in ways that money isn't being wasted, and money isn't being ripped off. That's an area where the tools may be there [to prevent it]."

Coleman said the new law against corporate fraud may not go far enough.

"With the drug dealers, we take their money away from them, we take their fancy wheels away from them. That's what we should be doing with corporate fraud, too."

Coleman said he's still optimistic about the future of the family farmer in Minnesota.

"It's starting to rebound; we're starting to get more farmers again, and I will fight for them whether it's 400 acres or 4,000 acres," Coleman said.

Reports that he said the family farm is dead during his 1998 gubernatorial campaign are not true, Coleman said.

"What I said was that the family farmer of the '50s just wouldn't be able to compete in today's market."

The family farm of today doesn't fit the 1950 model -- it comes in many different forms, said Coleman. He is committed, he said, to helping today's family farmer, whatever the size of the operation, be successful.