Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who over the weekend provided the crucial 60th vote to cut off debate, explained a big reason he went along: "The Senate health-care bill is not perfect. Yet it doesn't include a public option or taxpayer funding of abortion I worked to exclude."

One of the public option's biggest boosters, Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., realized that without the moderates, the entire health-care bill could be defeated.

"While the loss of the public option is bitter pill to swallow, on balance the bill still delivers meaningful reform, and the cost of inaction is simply too high," he said.

What all this means, said Barbara Kennelly, the president of the Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, is that bill supporters need to be reminded, "This is truly an opportunity to begin health-care reform."

That desire to at least provide a foundation for future action is what worries skeptics.

Abortion rights supporters worry that the Senate bill doesn't go much further than the House version, which restricts federal funding to instances in which a woman's life is in danger or she's a victim of rape or incest. Abortion opponents think the Senate bill, which has somewhat less restrictive requirements, goes too far.

Taxpayer groups see too many taxes going up, since the House version imposes a 5.4 percent surcharge on individuals with adjusted gross incomes of more than $500,000 and couples making more than $1 million.

The Senate version includes a 40 percent excise tax on more expensive insurance policies and a 0.9 percentage point increase in the 1.45 percent Medicare tax for individuals with wages of more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000.

"Democratic leaders put together a bill so heavy with tax hikes, Medicare cuts and government intrusion that in the end their biggest problem wasn't convincing Republicans to support it, it was convincing Democrats," scoffed Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

However, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was cheered Monday by a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll, which found that support for the Democrats' health-care bill was up 6 percentage points over the last two weeks.

That poll, though, also showed Democrats have a long way to go, as 56 percent still oppose the bill, while 42 percent support it.

ON THE WEB

Joint Committee on Taxation analysis of Senate amendment

CNN/Opinion Research Corp. health-care poll

Congressional Budget Office analysis of Senate Democrats' health-care bill

Text of Senate Democratic health-care bill

Congressional Budget Office analysis of House health bill

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