Nelson: Senate Dems discussed inclusion of House abortion language in health bill

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said Wednesday that Senate Democrats have discussed keeping the "principle" of the House abortion language in their bill. 

Nelson said that the Democrats have talked about the idea in closed-door meetings but did not delve into the specifics of the proposal.

"[There is] lot of discussion about how to keep the the principle of the House version with different language," he told reporters. "A lot of people are trying to explore if that is possible."

Nelson's amendment that mirrored Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) abortion language included in the House bill was tabled by the Senate on Tuesday. The Nebraska senator and key centrist vote before indicated that his amendment's inclusion of the bill was a crucial to his support for the bill.

Liberals strongly object to the amendment that they say goes too far in restricting private funds from paying for abortions. Nelson and other anti-abortion rights lawmakers say it is necessary to prevent public funds from funding abortions.

But Nelson, who also objects to the "opt-out" public option, told Talking Points Memo on Wednesday that Democratic negotiators did not seriously object to the alternative public option plans on principle. But he, like other Democratic senators insisted that he would have to wait until the Congressional Budget Office scores the bill until supporting or opposing it.

"I'm not aware of anything that was raising serious objections about it, I think it was about, 'Well, that sounds okay, let's see how it scores,'" Nelson said.

---