McFadden hits Franken over MNsure woes

Republican Senate candidate Mike McFadden on Wednesday pounced on news that PreferedOne will no longer sell insurance on MNsure, calling it the latest example of the Affordable Care Act's failure.

PreferredOne, the most popular insurer on MNsure's exchange, sold health coverage to at least 31,000 people or about 6 in every 10 of those who signed up for a commercial insurance plan on MNsure. But it wrote to MNsure's board this week saying that continuing to provide coverage through the exchange was "not financially sustainable."

The development will leave thousands of Minnesotans scrambling for new coverage that will likely be more expensive.

• Related: What MNsure's loss of PreferredOne means to health insurance customers

The state created MNsure as part of the federal Affordable Care Act. McFadden used PreferredOne's exit to rap incumbent DFL Sen. Al Franken and other Democrats for supporting the law.

"This program has been based on lies," McFadden told reporters at the Capitol. "The first lie was that you could keep your insurance if you wanted to. We know in Minnesota that that's not true. 140,000 Minnesota families lost their insurance. But I'm here to tell you today that the biggest lie from Sen. Franken and President Obama is that Obamacare will cost less. That is a lie."

Campaigning for president in 2008 Barack Obama promoted his desire to sign a universal health care bill that would "cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."

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Although the cost of health care has not decreased for most people, national health care spending is growing at historically low rates, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

And in response to criticism that Americans would not be allowed to keep health insurance plans that did not meet Affordable Care Act coverage standards, the White House put in place a short-term fix allowing people to keep their plans for one year.

The Franken campaign said McFadden is wrong to claim Franken said Obamacare would cost less.

"What he has said [is] that the cost will go up more slowly because of Obamacare," Franken campaign spokeswoman Alexandra Fetissoff said.

As McFadden went after Franken on Obamacare, Franken came out with a new TV ad accusing McFadden of profiting from a deal that resulted in a U.S. business relocating to Ireland.

McFadden accused Franken of running negative ads and insisted he's not responsible for what happens with businesses after he helps sell them.

"We have no operational control," he said. "That's not what we're trained to do. We're trained to sell businesses."

McFadden also said it's bad for the country when American corporations relocate abroad to cut their tax bill and that the United States needs to reduce corporate taxes to prevent what are called "inversions."

Fetissoff noted that Franken has co-sponsored legislation that would put a stop to inversions. So far though, Congress has done nothing to stop the practice.