By John Whitesides and Donna Smith
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats reached a compromise on Saturday with holdout Senator Ben Nelson that secured the 60 votes they need to pass the broad healthcare overhaul sought by President Barack Obama.
Nelson said a long day of negotiating on Friday concluded with an agreement that meets his goal of ensuring federal funds are not used to pay for abortions under the bill.
"The plan that we've put together here, that we have agreement on, in fact walls off that money in an effective manner," Nelson told reporters, pledging to back final passage and support fellow Democrats on upcoming votes to clear Republican procedural hurdles.
"I know these limits on abortion are hard for some people to accept," he said. "But I would not have voted for this bill without them."
Nelson, a strong abortion rights opponent, had been the elusive 60th vote for Democrats on the sweeping revamp, Obama's top legislative priority. The agreement followed 13 hours of negotiating on Saturday.
Nelson's backing should secure victory for Democrats in the first of a series of crucial procedural votes scheduled to begin at 1 a.m. (6 a.m. British time) on Monday and possibly conclude with final passage on Christmas Eve.
"It seems that way," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said when asked if Democrats had the 60 votes they need to muscle the bill through the Senate against unified Republican opposition.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, who has vowed to use every tool possible to delay the bill, forced the public reading of an amendment Reid unveiled on Saturday that makes final changes in the measure, including the abortion language.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the revised bill would cost $871 billion (539 billion pounds) over 10 years and cut the federal deficit by $132 billion in the same period -- meeting Obama's goal of cutting the deficit and limiting costs to about $900 billion over 10 years.
The reading of Reid's amendment expected to take much of the day. The moves came during a rare Saturday session of the Senate as a huge snowstorm slammed the U.S. capital, shutting down traffic.
"MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT"
"If they were proud of the bill they wouldn't be doing it this way," McConnell told reporters. "They wouldn't be jamming it through in the middle of the night on the last weekend before Christmas."
Obama has asked the Senate to finish by year's end to prevent the issue from spilling into the campaign for November 2010 congressional elections. Opinion polls show the bill losing public support, with majorities now opposed to it.
The Senate bill would extend coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans, provide subsidies to help them pay for the coverage and halt industry practices like refusing insurance to people with pre-existing medical conditions.
Reid's amendment incorporates a variety of other changes, from dropping the government-run public insurance option to adding non-profit health plans offered by private insurers and administered by a federal agency.
Other revisions take aim at insurance industry profits and taxes. It sets a cap on profits and raises the taxes to $10 billion a year industry-wide in 2017.
The amendment dropped the bill's controversial tax on elective cosmetic surgery but added a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning.
Nelson had not agreed to earlier compromise language designed to strengthen a ban on using federal funds for abortions. He and other abortion rights opponents fear the federal subsidies could be spent on plans covering abortion.
He said the agreement would mandate that every state exchange set up under the new bill include an insurance plan that does not cover abortion, and would require that payments for abortion coverage be made separately with private funds.
Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, a strong supporter of abortion rights, told reporters she believed the compromise would separate public and private funds for abortion coverage under the bill.
A version of the healthcare bill passed by the House of Representatives on November 7 includes slightly stricter anti-abortion language. The Senate rejected an amendment incorporating the language last week.
Reid already accommodated moderates like Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, by eliminating plans for a government-run insurance option and an expansion of the Medicare government health program for the elderly.
(Reporting by John Whitesides, editing by Eric Beech)
