Senator Sanders

Health Care - Senate Democrats locked in the 60th decisive vote for health care legislation Saturday. Sen. Bernie Sanders claimed credit for a last-minute, $10 billion increase in funding for community health centers nationwide, which he said would create new or expanded facilities in 10,000 areas and provide primary care for 25 million more Americans, The Associated Press reported. Sens. Sanders and Ben Cardin discussed the provision at a press conference broadcast by C-SPAN. LINK and VIDEO

Health Care - Health Centers Majority Leader Harry M. Reid secured the pivotal 60th vote after acceding to the demands of Sen. Ben Nelson for tighter restrictions on insurance coverage for abortions, along with increased federal aid for his home state and breaks for favored health-care interests. Other senators also won important changes. Reid added $10 billion for community health centers to provide services to low-income people. That funding had been a top priority for Sen. Sanders, a champion of the public option, The Washington Post reported. LINK

Health Care - Medicaid The health care overhaul includes a provision to increase Vermont's Medicaid payments by $250 million over six years. The provision, pushed by Sen. Patrick Leahy and supported by Sen. Sanders, is included in an amendment offered by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Saturday. The bill would require all"states to expand their Medicaid programs. Leahy, Sanders and others have argued that Vermont would have been penalized because it already has expanded its coverage, AP and WCAX reported. LINK and LINK

Health Care - Vermont Senators Vermont's Sens. Sanders and Leahy "tallied some big wins in a package of amendments unveiled Saturday to the health reform legislation," according to The Burlington Free Press. Seven Days blogged that the senators  "touted various elements of the federal health care reform bill that emerged Saturday, ranging from an additional $250 million in Medicaid funding to a measure allowing states to potentially enact single-payer health care systems on their own." LINK and LINK

Health Care - Sanders is OK "You've got to admire the courage of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Privately, a number of Senate Democrats agree with Sanders that the United States should have a single-payer, government-run health care system, but only Sanders has the guts to broach it publicly," The Daily Oklahoman editorialized. "Sen. Tom Coburn used Senate rules to force a reading of Sanders' 767-page amendment establishing a government-run system. ‘I admire Senator Sanders for his willingness to fight for publicly what many advocate only privately,'" Coburn said. LINK

Health Care - ‘Cornhusker Kickback' Ben Nelson's "Cornhusker Kickback," as Republicans dubbed it, might be the most blatant deal carved out for a single state, a permanent exemption from the state share of Medicaid expansion,  but another holdout, Sen. Sanders, took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers. Vermont and Massachusetts were given additional Medicaid funding, another plus for Sanders, Politico, Bloomberg, Fox News and the Las Vegas Sun reported. LINK, LINK, LINK

Health Care - Dean Rush Limbaugh spent Wednesday afternoon praising former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean on his radio show after the Vermont physician bucked his party last week and strongly came out in opposition to the health care bill under debate in the Senate. The Vermont Press Bureau said Dean also won praise from the left. "Howard Dean is a genuine hero," wrote David Sirota, a former Sanders press secretary, at the Huffington Post Web site Thursday. LINK

International

Climate Conference After two weeks of delays, theatrics and last-minute deal-making, the United Nations climate change talks concluded here early Saturday morning with a grudging agreement by the participants to "take note" of a pact shaped by five major nations.  The final accord, a 12-paragraph document, was a statement of intention, not a binding pledge to begin taking action on global warming - a compromise seen to represent a flawed but essential step forward, The New York Times reported. LINK

National

Health Care - Obama President Obama today hailed the legislation as "the largest deficit reduction plan in a decade," and praised the changes for making the health care bill stronger, ABC News reported. LINK

Snow Storm An enormous winter storm piled snow on New England Saturday evening, after crippling the nation's capital and the mid-Atlantic earlier in the day, causing thousands of flights to be canceled across the country, knocking out power lines and stranding motorists during the peak of the holiday shopping and travel season. With winter officially starting on Monday, one to two feet of snow were expected to fall by Sunday morning from Virginia to New England, where blizzard warnings were posted for coastal areas, The New York Times reported. LINK

Vermont

Guard Mission The Vermont National Guad mission has transformed from something that sounded like a cultural exchange to something that sounds like war. The Vermonters' duties have been broadened to include direct security operations in a counterinsurgency mission - duties that could involve armed confrontations with hostile insurgents targeting local populations. Maj. Gen. Michael Dubie said the changes mean the Vermont mission is "more similar to other traditional U.S. force missions, and less of a purely training and mentoring mission," the Vermont Press Bureau reported. LINK