WASHINGTON – A key compromise in the Senate health care debate ran into problems Sunday when Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson expressed concerns about it on CBS's "Face the Nation."
Nelson was among the Senate Democrats who last week put together an alternative to the government health insurance plan, or public option, in the bill.
Part of the compromise would allow people ages 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare.
Nelson said on the TV news show that it wasn't clear how much the buy-in plan would cost the government and that he had deep reservations about it.
“I'm concerned that it's the forerunner of . . . the ultimate single-payer plan, maybe even more directly than the public option.”
Nelson said he had supported sending the proposal to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis, which has not been completed.
Also appearing on the program with Nelson were Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who supports the public option and Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, who opposes it.
Lieberman said opposition to the Medicare buy-in proposal has been growing. He described it as a bad deal for taxpayers and the deficit: “We don't need to keep adding onto the back of this horse, or we're going to break the horse's back and get nothing done.”
Lieberman said the health care bill could pass in a matter of days if a few parts of it were dropped, including the public option and the Medicare buy-in.
Nelson also said Sunday that he still wants tighter restrictions on federal funding for abortion coverage, like those approved by the House.
Most Senate Democrats say those restrictions go too far.
Rockefeller said that as the final vote nears, he sees momentum for the bill building and that it will be harder to oppose it based on individual provisions.
The show's host, Bob Schieffer, pressed Rockefeller on why he would feel optimistic about the bill passing, given Nelson's and Lieberman's statements.
“I do," Rockefeller said, "because history calls on us."
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