Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- A year in the making, sweeping health care legislation backed by President 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 telling reporters, "I hope we're getting closer" to agreement.
"Without modifications, the language concerning abortion is not sufficient," he said earlier in the day in a written statement that summarized the results of days of private negotiations. 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, said in a statement.
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.
But like Trumka, he stopped short of urging its defeat. Not so for Howard Dean, the former national party chairman, who has said he would oppose the legislation because it does not include a strong enough role for the government in a remade health care system.
