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New York (CNNMoney.com) – The health care bill that faces a crucial test vote in the Senate on Saturday is proof that getting reform passed and getting it right are two very different things.

Both are hard. But the pursuit of votes has weakened key elements with the most promise of reducing overall health spending.

Exhibit A: The eleventh-hour introduction of a Medicare tax hike as a way to help pay for reform.

Health care reform, to succeed, must not only help more people get coverage but also slow the growth in health costs and spending.

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Washington (CNN ) - Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson announced Friday that he would be supporting the motion to proceed that would allow the Senate to begin debate on the Democrats' health care reform legislation.

"Throughout my Senate career I have consistently rejected efforts to obstruct," he said in a statement. "That's what the vote on the motion to proceed is all about. It is not for or against the new Senate health care bill released Wednesday. It is only to begin debate and an opportunity to make improvements. If you don't like a bill why block your own opportunity to amend it?"

The Nebraska Democrat sounded a positive note Thursday after emerging from a meeting with Reid and other moderate Democratic holdouts in the Senate Majority Leader's office, although he told CNN then he was withholding his final decision on the motion to proceed until he had a chance to "study (the bill) or at least review it to begin with."

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Washington (CNN) – The House voted Thursday to prevent cuts in coming years in Medicare reimbursements to doctors.

However, the so-called "doc fix" bill was defeated earlier this year in the Senate, which is unlikely to reconsider the measure until after it completes work on an overall health care reform bill.

The House approved the $210 billion bill on a 243-183 vote, mostly on partisan lines. Democrats called it a necessary step to address an annual problem under a 1997 formula that limits increases in Medicare reimbursement costs.

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Senate Majority leader unveils chamber's health care proposal.

Washington (CNN) – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday unveiled a sweeping health care bill that would expand health insurance coverage to 30 million more Americans at an estimated cost of $849 billion over 10 years.

Reid and other Senate Democrats cited an analysis by the non-partisan
Congressional Budget Office for the coverage and cost figures. In addition, they told a news conference, the CBO estimated the proposal would reduce the federal deficit by $127 billion over the next 10 years and by more than $600 billion in the following decade.

The proposal drafted from two separate bills approved by Senate committees now goes to the full Senate, where Republicans have vowed to try to block it.

Washington (CNN) – Coming out of their Wednesday meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana both had positive comments that suggested they were more ready to vote for a motion that would allow debate to begin on the Democrats' health care plan than they had been prior to this afternoon's sitdown.

Landrieu and Nelson, along with fellow moderate Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, met with Reid in his office.

"Sen. Reid gave me some assurances that some of my concerns will be dealt with," said Landrieu, who stressed she would not make a decision on whether to vote for the motion to proceed until the text of the bill was released, and she had a chance to review some of the provisions again.

"I’ve been very clear. There are two or three issues," she told CNN. "One, does this bill actually drive down costs to individuals, to businesses and to the government. Number two, is there a quote, public option that will undermine the private insurance market - and if there is, it needs to come out at some point. It needs to come out at some point.

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Washington (CNN) - The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the Senate health care bill would cost $849 billion over 10 years, according to a senior Democratic source and an administration official.

The CBO projects the measure would reduce deficit by $127 billion and insure an additional 31 million Americans, according to the sources.

Ninety-four percent of Americans would be covered under the bill, the sources noted.

–CNN's Dana Bash contributed to this report

Update: The talking points sent by the Senate Democratic leadership to aides after the news broke stressed fiscal discipline. "(The CBO) findings will give us a great momentum as we move forward," read the memo.

"These findings will please all members of our caucus who have made fiscal discipline a priority in this debate as well as all members of our caucus who have made affordable care a priority. ... Senate Republicans who have on many occasions during this debate hailed the primacy of the CBO will have a hard time arguing with these numbers without being hypocritical."

(CNN) – Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson, who have all expressed skepticism about the party's health care reform plan, were summoned to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's office Wednesday to get a sneak peak at his health care bill.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Wednesday the senator invited these three moderate Democrats into his office to give them the "particulars on the bill."

All have been withholding support on voting to start debate - and the fact that Reid is giving the three their own special briefing, before the broader Democratic meeting at 5 pm Wednesday, is a signal of their power.

Assuming no Republican senator joins Democrats in voting to end debate, Reid needs all 60 senators in his party's caucus to vote in favor of a so-called "motion to proceed."

If any Democrat votes no on proceeding to debate, Reid's health care bill will go down before it starts.

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Key players on health care include, from left, Sen. Max Baucus, Sen. John Rockefeller, Sen. Harry Reid and Sen. Chris Dodd.

Washington (CNN) – November and December tend to be a typically slow time for Congress as it wraps up business before a new session begins.

But not this year.

The Senate is expected to soon return to health care reform, the legislative lightning rod of 2009. Most analysts expect it to be an engaging debate.

But will Americans be paying attention as they carve the Thanksgiving turkey and shop for the holidays?

Analysts say yes - and that Americans are more tuned in than ever.

"I do think the audience for this debate will go beyond 'inside baseball,' though it won't extend beyond the already politically engaged electorate," says Frances Lee, a political scientist with the University of Maryland. "I would expect this debate to be equally engaging, though it will also be far longer."

Lee says the Senate debate is "sure to draw a big audience by the normal standards for such things."

It's a point with which Senate Historian Donald Ritchie agrees.

"I think what's been unusual about the health care debate is that the public has been following it from the very beginning," he says. "They've actually been watching it going through the committee systems, through the markup systems."

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Pro-life protesters hit Capitol Hill earlier this month.

Washington (CNN) – Six in 10 Americans favor a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion, according to a new poll which also indicates that the public may also favor legislation that would prevent many women from getting their health insurance plan to cover the cost of an abortion, even if no federal funds are involved.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Wednesday morning indicates that 61 percent of the public opposes the use of public money for abortions for women who can not afford the procedure, with 37 percent in favor of allowing the use of federal funds.

And by a 51 percent to 45 percent margin, those questioned in the survey think that a women who get abortions should pay the full costs out of their own pocket, even if they have private health insurance and no federal funds are involved. The 6-point difference is within the poll's sampling error.

The health care reform bill that narrowly passed in the House of Representatives on November 7 included tight restrictions on the use of federal money for abortion coverage. Abortion rights activists are strongly opposed to such restrictions.

"Roughly one in five Americans who oppose the House health care bill do so because it is not liberal enough," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The abortion issue may be one reason why. But for most Americans, potential restrictions on abortion may not be a dealbreaker."

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TOPICS: Abortion, health care bill

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Sen. Dick Durbin said the health care bill has to pass the Senate this year.

(CNN) – The Senate's second-ranking Democrat told CNN Tuesday that he hopes to have a version of the health care bill done and available to the public by Thanksgiving.

Sen. Dick Durbin told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that debate in the Senate on the health care bill could start this week and that he hopes that it will be "posted for the world to see over the Thanksgiving recess." He said he thinks he does have all 60 votes needed to move the bill to the Senate floor.

"I believe if we have full attendance, that we will have the 60 votes to begin the debate in terms of moving the bill forward," Durbin said. "That's when the delicate negotiations begin. And wouldn't it be great to have a senator from the other side of the aisle to join us in that effort?"

Durbin said that the bill "has to be done in the Senate this year" and that he hopes it will go to a final vote before President Obama's State of the Union address at the beginning of next year, but that he "wouldn't predict that."

(CNN) - Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz criticized an influential health panel's new guidelines recommending that women get mammograms less frequently, calling some of the findings "disturbing" and "patronizing."

The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, an independent group of health care experts, issued new guidelines on Tuesday recommending that women in their 40s not get routine mammograms, and refrain from doing regular self exams. Part of the reason, one panel member told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, is to prevent women from worrying too much about having cancer.

"The harms of screening is what we call the false positives," Lucy Marion, the dean of the school of nursing at the Medical College of Georgia said. "In other words, women will have unnecessary worry about cancer. They may have unnecessary biopsy. In some cases they may have more radiation than healthy for them, though in most cases, that's a minor problem. But there are those harms, and we weigh those harms with the benefits of the few women that would benefit from that."

Wasserman Schultz, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 41 and said she found it though a self-exam, introduced a bill in March to teach even younger women about early detection. She said on Tuesday that women need to get more information to make educated decisions about their health care.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to evaluate the cost of the bill.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Senate's top Democrat declined Tuesday to say when he would introduce a hotly anticipated health care reform bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said he was still waiting for a cost estimate of the legislation from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

"We're going to be hearing from CBO very soon," he promised during a Capitol Hill news conference.

Reid accused Republicans, who have promised a filibuster, of trying to dodge a full Senate debate and rob "the American people of a historic opportunity."

Sixty votes in the 100-member Senate are required to overcome a filibuster and open Senate debate on the bill.

GOP leaders, meanwhile, expressed fears that the Democrats would try to spring the measure on the Senate with little advance warning to deny Republicans a chance to adequately review it before starting debate.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said he expects a vote to open debate on the measure would come Friday. He pledged Republicans would continue to strongly oppose a bill that they say will result in tax and premium increases while doing little to rein in spiraling medical costs.

TOPICS: Health care, Obama approval rating, 2010 midterm election

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Washington (CNN) – Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who last week insisted that the Senate health care bill include tight restrictions passed by the House on the use of federal money for abortion coverage, now says he would be satisfied with the less restrictive language approved by the Senate Finance Committee.

Nelson's position is apt to help Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who is trying to cobble together a health care bill - which is full of policy mine fields such as abortion - without losing the support of any Democrats, many of whom support abortion rights, while others, like Nelson, do not.

At issue is whether federal money that is used to subsidize health insurance premiums can be separated from private funds to pay for abortions. In the Senate language, that would be allowed. In the House language, it would not.

(updated Tuesday 11/17 to clarify Nelson response)

Washington (CNN) - The problematic intersection of health care and abortion politics was highlighted again Monday as religious abortion rights supporters demanded changes to reform legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives.

Members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice held a news conference calling on the Senate to alter language in the House bill that places explicit restrictions on federal funding for abortion.

"We call on the Senate to ensure that the health care reform is freed of religious doctrine and restrictions that would prevent women from making their own reproductive health care choices," said the Rev. Carlton Veazey, the head of the coalition.

"We are ... very disappointed, but we are not defeated," declared Jon O'Brien, head of the group Catholics for Choice, which is part of the coalition. "We believe that health care reform is not about covering some parts of some people, but all parts of everybody."

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(CNN) – As Democrats on Capitol Hill are trying to avoid a brewing intra-party battle over treatment of abortion in health care reform legislation, a top presidential adviser is reiterating that President Obama remains opposed to legislation that contains language preferred by more conservative Democrats in Congress.

In an effort ensure passage of the health care reform bill in the House, last week Speaker Nancy Pelosi permitted a group of approximately 40 anti-abortion Democrats to present an amendment that prohibits any insurance plan offered on a new health insurance exchange from offering coverage for abortion. The amendment is named after one of its sponsors, Bart Stupak of Michigan.

After the Stupak amendment passed with an assist from many House Republicans, more progressive, pro-abortion rights Democrats in the House and the Senate began organizing in an effort to eliminate the provision from the final version of the bill that will be voted on by both chambers and presented to President Obama for his signature. Abortion rights advocates regard the Stupak amendment as changing the status quo, a longstanding compromise between the two sides in the abortion debate. The compromise is best expressed through the Hyde amendment, a rider to an annual spending bill. The amendment, which is renewed every year, prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion and has, for many years, prohibited the federal government from paying for abortions as part of the Medicaid program. But abortion rights activists say the Stupak amendment goes further, effectively prohibiting even individuals who are using their own money to buy coverage on the exchange from obtaining coverage for abortion.

In an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, Obama adviser David Axelrod reiterated the president’s position on how abortion should be handled in the debate over health care reform.

“The president has said repeatedly, and he said in his speech to Congress, that he doesn’t believe that this bill should change the status quo as it relates to the issue of abortion,” Axelrod told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King. “He’s going to work with the Senate and the House to try to ensure that at the end of the day the status quo is not changed.”

Asked specifically whether the Stupak amendment changed the status quo, Axelrod replied “I think it’s fair to say the bill Congress passed does change the status quo. But I believe there are discussions ongoing as to how to change it accordingly.”

King asked Axelrod whether the president would sign a final health care bill that contains the Stupak amendment. Likening it to Obama’s position on the public health insurance, Axelrod said Obama “believes both these issues and can and will be worked through before [the final bill] reaches his desk.”

Liberal groups have targeted Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska over his views on health care reform.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Sixty. It's the magic number of votes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs to move his health care reform bill to the Senate floor and tamp down filibuster threats by Republicans.

And the 60th vote could well be Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebraska.

Nelson and other Democrats have spoken out against the costs of plans being discussed, and most recently the $1.1 trillion House bill, which passed last weekend.

Reid doesn't expect Republican support for the bill, so he'll need all of the 58 Democrats and the two independents who caucus with them.

Nelson, 68, recently said he would decide how to vote on whether to send the bill to the Senate floor once he sees the final version.

"I'm not going to make any kind of commitment until I see the bill," Nelson said, adding that he has not given Reid any assurance or "secret" acknowledgment of support.

"I can't decide about the procedural vote until I see the underlying bill," he told CNN.

Nelson told ABC News on Tuesday that faced with a decision on whether to "move a bill that is bad, I won't vote to move it."

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(CNN) - The House squeaked out its version of health care reform and now President Obama is putting pressure on the Senate to do the same so he can sign a bill before the end of the year.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he hopes to start debate next week on whether to send his bill to the floor. The Congressional Budget Office is appraising components of Reid's legislation.

But a handful of moderate Democrats might determine whether Reid's bill is debated.

Republicans are basically united in opposition to Reid's plan. With 60 votes needed to start debate on the legislation, Reid needs all 58 of the Democrats in the Senate and the two independents who caucus with them to vote his way.

Time is ticking away on reaching Obama's goal. Democrats are already doubtful that they'll be able to reach it.

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