http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/08/26/franken-health-care/
At a meeting on health care he held in St. Paul, Franken said a public option could provide an important "check" on insurance companies by competing with them in a not-for-profit model.
"Boy, is health care rationed now," Franken said. "And it's rationed by big insurance companies that choose to say, 'Oh, you can't have it.'"
Franken lamented what he said has been a lot of misinformation about how a public option would work.
"People have been kind of misinformed about what this is too," Franken said. "They consider it government takeover of health, and we have to reassure them, if it's even possible, that that's not what it is. It's another option."