Dems struggle to find unity on health-care plan

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are still struggling to find a strategy that will let them push a health-care overhaul through the Senate and fulfill President Barack Obama's goal of signing a bill this year.

A day after Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the Democratic bill would include the option of a government insurance plan, moderates in his own party lost no time Tuesday in voicing their displeasure. Reid, D-Nev., needs every Democrat to break the filibusters Republicans are vowing to mount. But some of the moderates refuse to say whether they'll stick with their leader on procedural votes, let alone those on the merits of the bill.

"We are a long way from reaching conclusion," said Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in a similar position in the House. Efforts to draft a consensus health care bill for a vote have been stalled for more than two weeks because of disagreements among Democrats.

There are nine weeks left in the year to deliver a bill to Obama's desk.