Brian Wojtalewicz letter: Beware deceptive attacks on DFLers

I'm very tired of the unfair, deceptive attacks on Andrew Falk, Mary Sawatzky and Lyle Koenen by Republican dark money outfits.

MNsure only provides a website to help people shop for the cheapest and best coverage they can get, and arranges subsidies to help some pay for it. It does not have any control over BCBS and the other big two Minnesota insurance corporations gouging us. (Competition? What a joke!)

While Obamacare outlawed discriminatory prices against women, and denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, its weakness is not having price controls on the insurance and drug corporations. Gov. Dayton recognizes this too.

I have a dear family member who needs to carry an Epi-Pen, as a simple bee sting could be deadly. Over the last five years, drug corporation Mylan used its monopoly on Epi-Pen to jack up the annual price from around $100 to over $600. A few top Mylan executives have helped themselves to over $300 million during that time.

This is just one example of horrible drug price gouging. DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar has been leading the charge in Washington to stop this insanity. Andrew Falk, Mary Sawatzky and Lyle Koenen want to do what they can on the state level to rein in the gouging.

Speaking of the drug and insurance corps, we are deluged with attack mail flyers and radio ads by the "Minnesota Jobs Coalition" and other dark groups attacking Andrew, Mary and Lyle.

It takes some digging to find that they are just fronts for the Minnesota Republican Party. Good investigators have shown in the past that some of their money has come from health insurers including BCBS, drug corporations like Pfizer, oil corporations, huge banks, Las Vegas casinos, and tobacco corporations.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the Republican Party in St. Paul this year pushed a tax break demanded by the tobacco industry. With such funding for their attacks against DFLers, can we expect Republicans to rein in the price gouging by BCBS, Pfizer, Mylan and the other drug corps? As usual, follow the money, folks.

Brian Wojtalewicz

Appleton