Health care legislation clears critical vote in Senate

After months of negotiating, compromising, and arm-twisting, Senate Democrats finally got the sixty votes needed to move health care forward. Some progressives say the bill they ended up with isn’t worth passing. But Democrats are claiming victory. FSRN's Tanya Snyder brings us the story from Washington.

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Also this weekend on Capitol Hill, President Obama signed the $626 billion defense spending bill, which the Senate approved on Saturday. About $128 billion will go to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the bill doesn't include funding for Obama's troop surge. The bill includes a 3.4 percent pay increase for the military, and some non-military spending - including an extension of unemployment benefits and subsides for people using COBRA, the federal program that continues health insurance for people who lose their jobs. Ten senators voted against it, including one democrat - Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who called it "fiscally irresponsible and misguided."