"He wants to strengthen the bill," Michael Briggs, Sanders’ Communications Director, wrote in an e-mail to Raw Story. "With the public option and Medicare buy-in off the table, he is focused on strengthening provisions on community health centers."<\/font><\/p>\n "He wants to dramatically increase support," Briggs added, "for the primary care facilities that provide doctors, dentists, mental health counseling and low-cost prescription drugs on a sliding-scale basis — and he is working to improve a provision that would let states experiment with single payer or other innovative programs to deliver comprehensive, affordable health care more efficiently and economically."<\/font><\/p>\n But the Senator made no promises about how he’ll ultimately vote, saying "we’ll see" what happens.<\/font><\/p>\n Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid removed a Medicare buy-in option from the health bill on Monday, following Lieberman’s announcement that he would join a Republican filibuster of the bill if it included the Medicare expansion. Lieberman’s vote was seen as crucial to getting the 60 votes needed to overcome filibuster.<\/font><\/p>\n But Sanders’ comments Wednesday indicated that the Democratic caucus may have gained the support of one of its most conservative members at the price of one of its most liberal<\/strong>. (Sanders, a longtime favorite politician in Vermont, is a self-described "democratic socialist.")<\/font><\/p>\n "As of this point, I’m not voting for this bill<\/strong>," Sanders told Fox’s Neil Cavuto. "I\u2019m going to do my best to make this bill a better bill, a bill that I can vote for, but I\u2019ve indicated both to the White House and the Democratic leadership that my vote is not secure at this point. And here is the reason. When the public option was withdrawn, because of Lieberman\u2019s action, what I worried about is, how do you control escalating health care costs? How do you give competition to the private insurance companies who are raising rates outrageously every year<\/strong>?"\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Inserted from <Raw Story<\/a>><\/p>\n Bob Cesca argues the other side well.<\/p>\n Ezra Klein:<\/a><\/p>\n To put this a bit more sharply, if I could construct a system in which insurers spent 90 percent of every premium dollar on medical care, never discriminated against another sick applicant, began exerting real pressure for providers to bring down costs, vastly simplified their billing systems, made it easier to compare plans and access consumer ratings, and generally worked more like companies in a competitive market rather than companies in a non-functional market, I would take that deal. And if you told me that the price of that deal was that insurers would move from being the 86th most profitable industry to being the 53rd most profitable industry, I would still take that deal.<\/font><\/p>\n So would I, even though I’m pissed off about it. But it undeniably makes sense to take the deal. If progressives successfully convince enough Democrats to kill the bill, do we really want to be the group that plunged the last blade into the back of reform<\/strong>?\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n Inserted from <Huffington Post<\/a>><\/p>\n Cesca is correct that there are god qualities left in this bill. But is it enough?<\/p>\n![\"[#Beginning](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202009\/HealthCare1217AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH_233C\/berniesanders.jpg\" "\\"[#Beginning")
<\/a> In what may be a huge setback for the Democratic leadership, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Wednesday on the Fox Business Network that "as of this point" he cannot vote for the Senate health care bill after the concessions recently made to Sen. Joe Lieberman<\/strong> (I-CT).<\/font><\/p>\n<\/a> If I stop being pissed off long enough to take a good look at what remains in both the Senate and House bills, there aren’t necessarily fool-proof solutions to these problems, but there are regulations, subsidies and reforms that will ameliorate a significant chunk of the present crisis. For example, the Senate bill will reduce the cost of insurance for a family of four earning $54,000 from around<\/font> $19,000 per year to around $9,000 per year<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n