Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement on Sunday that the bill must have a strong public option to win his vote.
“I strongly suspect that there are a number of senators, including myself, who would not support final passage without a strong public option,” he said. Not supporting final passage, however, is different than vowing to filibuster it and prevent it from even getting to a vote on final passage, as independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is now doing, hoping to strip the public option.
But Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said on Saturday night that if the bill bends toward the conservatives, “You’ll lose people on the left.”
One of those could be Roland Burris (D-Ill.), who said Saturday he’d oppose any bill without a public option. “I won’t vote for it,” he said.