BOISE, Idaho - U.S. Rep. Walt Minnick says he intends to vote against the health care reform bill coming up for a vote in the U.S. House.
Minnick, Idaho's lone Democrat in Congress, says the new House bill fails to meet key goals for reforming the nation's health care system. But Minnick says he likes some of what he's seen in the Senate version.
Democratic leaders say they are still short of the votes needed to pass the sweeping reform package and are pushing a vote back to Sunday or early next week.
Minnick is part of a group of moderate Democrats opposed to the bill.
Minnick says he favors reforms in the insurance industry, reducing government spending on Medicare and reducing costs throughout the system. But he says the House bill falls short of doing those things.
Just as Lawrence Kazmerski, a top official at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, was about to give the keynote address at the University of Minnesota's annual E3 conference at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, the lights went out, bathing the audience in darkness and a deep sense of irony.
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