BLITZER:Let's go to Capitol Hill right now, talk a little bit more about health care reform, what it might look like as this process continues to move forward over the next several weeks, maybe even months.

Senator Bernie Sanders is joining us. He's an Independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats. And Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, he's also a physician.

Senator Barrasso, five committees have now taken this up, three in the House, two in the Senate. They've all passed various versions. Does it look like this train is leaving the station and you and the Republicans are going to be left behind?

SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R), WYOMING: Everyone believes we need health care reform. There are things we can do, but, Wolf, these bills, this is the wrong way to do the right thing.

There is a right way to do the right thing, and I think we need to make it patient-centered instead of Washington-centered or insurance company-centered. There's a lot we can do, and these bills aren't doing it.

These bills are going to cut Medicare, the care that our seniors depend on, by $500 billion. They are going to raise taxes for $400 billion. And as you said in the introduction, there's going to be insurance for people who don't have it, but it's also very clear today from the discussion in the committee that it's going to raise the prices for people that do have insurance. They are going to end up paying more for insurance than if nothing passed.

BLITZER: But Senator, on the political question, are the Democrats going to get their way? They got one Republican senator on board today. In the end, will the president sign health care reform into law?

BARRASSO: Oh, I think there's going to be something that the president is going to sign, but I really hope that we can, along the way, as Olympia Snowe said, change things, amend things, work to merely make it patient-centered instead of a government-run program, which my concerns are. And we're seeing what is government-forced insurance in the bill that passed today.

BLITZER: Senator Sanders, could you vote for this legislation that passed in the Senate Finance Committee today? It does not have a public option.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: No. It's a pretty weak bill, and we're going to have to make it a lot stronger.

Remember, Wolf, the United States today is the only country in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care to all people. While the insurance companies are making huge profits, 45,000 Americans last year died, and we end up spending almost twice as much as any other country on health care and yet our outcomes are worse.

Obviously, we need real health care reform. We need to make it affordable for the middle class. We need a much greater emphasis on prevention and primary health care. And very importantly, we need a public option so that people in 50 states of this country can have the choice about whether they want to continue with their private insurance company or they want a Medicare-type program.

BLITZER: But if that public option can't get 60 votes in the Senate which is needed to break a filibuster, Senator Sanders, here's the question: What would be better, voting against it, defeating that, getting nothing, or getting something that meets some of your goals?

SANDERS: Well, you're raising all kinds of hypotheticals. I don't think that's going to happen. The last poll that I saw had by a 2-1 vote, 62-31, people wanting a Medicare public option, and I think that's what we're going to do.

BLITZER: Quickly respond to that, Senator Barrasso.

BARRASSO: Well, to me, that's a government-run insurance plan. We have them right now. We have Medicare, we have Medicaid.

Medicare, as we know as that model, is going broke. It's unsustainable expenses in the future. With Medicaid, the aid for other people, that's really being forced upon the state. It's going to break the banks of most states, force them into bankruptcy. And 40 percent of doctors in the country won't see these Medicaid patients right now because the reimbursement is so low. And that's why the costs are shifted to people who already have insurance and why the costs for Americans with insurance, Wolf, we know is going to go up if this becomes law.

SANDERS: No, that's -- that's really not quite right. What we're talking about is a Medicare-type program which is going to be funded by premiums. And I think if you give most people the choice in this country of whether they want a private insurance company which denies people insurance with pre-existing conditions, or throws them off of their insurance policies because they were too sick the previous year, you know what? Most people would prefer a Medicare- type program even if it's paid with premiums.

It is not a government program. It is paid for by premiums.

BLITZER: In the Senate Finance Committee bill there is this so- called Cadillac plan, to tax these Cadillac plans. Let me explain to our viewers what we're talking about. A lot of talk about these so- called Cadillac plans.

Critics say that these Cadillac plans, think of them as high-end health insurance plans that are employer-sponsored and strictly for the rich like Wall Street executives. But blue collar workers, including a lot of union members, they are getting -- they can get these Cadillac plans as well. That's because unions often push for them in contract negotiations.

The current bill just passed in the Senate Finance Committee wants to tax these so-called Cadillac plans. The unions don't like this. The goal though would be raising billions of dollars for health care reform.

Senator Sanders, are you with the unions on this...

SANDERS: Absolutely.

BLITZER: ... or are you with the Senate Finance Committee?

SANDERS: No, absolutely. I'm with millions of Americans who have worked very, very hard, have foregone pay increases in order to get good insurance policies, and those insurance policies should not be taxed. In my view, Wolf, there are hundreds of billions of dollars in waste in the current system in terms of administration, profiteering and bureaucracy that we've got to squeeze out of the system, not tax working people who fought very hard to get good insurance programs.

BLITZER: Do you support taxing these so-called Cadillac plans, Senator Barrasso?

BARRASSO: Well, my concern, Wolf, like Senator Sanders, I'm for the American people. And this plan, this tax, within the next 10 years about 40 percent to 50 percent of all Americans will be paying taxes because the inflation rate on health care has been going up greater than the other inflation rate. So, you're going to see more and more people paying tax, a lot of the hard-working people all across the country. But like Senator Sanders said, there is so much waste and fraud and abuse in Medicare right now. We see the drug dealers in Florida going into Medicare fraud because it's more profitable, there's less chance of getting caught, and if they get caught the punishment is less.

So, we need to clean this up first before we get a whole new government-run plan in place.

SANDERS: But the fraud is also being committed not by little guys who are ripping off the system, but by companies like Pfizer and big drug companies who are also ripping off the system. And my understanding -- when I talk about waste, what I'm talking about is thousands of separate private insurance programs whose goal in life is not to provide health care, it's to make as much money as they possibly can, which, in fact, the insurance companies are doing a very good job at right now. If we squeeze that waste, that administrative, that bureaucratic waste out of the system, we can provide health care to all people without spending a nickel more than we're currently spending.

BLITZER: Good debate.

BARRASSO: And, of course, Wolf, they don't cover -- anywhere in here, they don't look at any of the abuse of lawsuits and the amount of money that can be saved by eliminating so much of this defensive medicine that's practiced. And I was in a hospital yesterday in Wyoming, and we heard from doctors and patients and nurses. All of them are concerned that that's not included really in any of these bills.

SANDERS: Well, we should look at it, but the cost, the savings will be substantially less than many of my Republican friends are talking about.

BLITZER: The Congressional Budget Office...

BARRASSO: Hundreds of billions of dollars.

BLITZER: Senator Sanders, the Congressional Budget Office says it will be $50 billion that Americans will save if there's significant malpractice...

SANDERS: Over a 10-year period.

BLITZER: Yes. That's a lot of money, $50 billion.

SANDERS: Yes, but we're spending $2.5 trillion. So add it up. It's something, ,and we should pursue it, but it's not what the Republicans are talking about.

BLITZER: Senators, thanks to both of you for coming in.

BARRASSO: Thank you, Wolf.

SANDERS: Thank you.