Health Care Hurdles: Legislation's Fate Hangs in the Balance

Jan. 27, 2010— -- President Obama will likely press lawmakers to find common ground on health care in his first official State of the Union address tonight, but the fate of the bill remains in limbo as Democrats ponder options after losing the Massachusetts Senate seat to a Republican.

Despite telling Congress last week not to "jam" through a health care bill right now, the president is urging members of Congress to reach a consensus on core principles on which most members can agree.

"As we move forward, we've got to make sure that we're focused on what is actually helping the American people deal with what is a very serious problem," Obama said Monday in an ABC News interview.

But many Democratic lawmakers who are up for re-election are jittery about their own political futures and the leadership is not confident that the party will garner enough votes to pass a bill.

Democratic leaders are even weighing the option of not passing health care legislation altogether, which would be a major blow to the president's agenda.

Here's a look at where lawmakers stand on some of the major components of health care overhaul:

Democrats, and possibly even some Republicans, may be able to reach a consensus on what reforms need to be implemented in the insurance industry. Most lawmakers agree on eliminating pre-existing conditions and barring insurance companies from rejecting patients based upon those.

Obama has urged Congress members to look for such commonalities and possibly even draft a new bill, taking the most popular ideas and scrapping the rest.

The Senate and House health care bills are also similar in that they expand Medicaid coverage, create insurance exchanges in which those who do not have insurance can compare and buy coverage and cut what some lawmakers deem as inefficiencies in Medicare.

But they also vastly differ in their language on abortion, the option of a government-run insurance plan and how to fund the cost of health care overhaul.

House Democrats have also objected to the concessions that some Democratic senators, such as Ben Nelson of Nebraska, received in return for their votes.