WASHINGTON — A year in the making, sweeping health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama hung in the balance Thursday as conservative Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson withheld his vote in pursuit of stricter abortion limits and liberals grew restive on the left.
Any lingering hopes the bill’s supporters had of a Republican casting a critical 60th vote vanished when Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said after a meeting with Obama that the Democrats’ timetable for a pre-Christmas vote was “totally unrealistic.”
Nelson, the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, was vague throughout the day about his intentions, eventually saying, “I hope we’re getting closer” to agreement.
“Without modifications, the language concerning abortion is not sufficient,” he said earlier. The second-term Nebraskan opposes the procedure and wants tighter restrictions written into the overhaul.
With Nelson’s support, the White House and Senate Democrats would command 60 votes for the health care measure, enough to overcome a Republican filibuster and pass the bill within a matter of days.
Without it, the prospects are far more uncertain, given unyielding Republican opposition on the conservative right as well as growing expressions of unhappiness on the left that sent the White House scrambling.
“The absolute refusal of Republicans in the Senate to support health care reform and the hijacking of the bill by defenders of the insurance industry have brought us a Senate bill that is inadequate,” Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO.
His criticism of GOP lawmakers aside, Trumka’s blast seemed aimed at Nelson, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and possibly other members of the Senate Democratic caucus who have successfully stripped the legislation of any form of government-run insurance option.
Andrew Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, said he, too, was deeply disappointed in the bill.
Overall, the legislation is designed to extend coverage to millions who lack it, ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and slow the rise in medical spending nationwide.
The bill would require most Americans to purchase insurance, and it includes hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to help families afford it.
As drafted, the measure bans the use of federal funds to finance abortions under insurance to be sold in a newly created exchange, except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. The plans could provide abortion coverage, however, that consumers would purchase with their own money.
That approach draws criticism from abortion opponents who argue it is an accounting gimmick. A draft of the proposal also would permit consumers to opt out of abortion coverage, and require insurance companies to cut premiums for those who do.
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