But if the news of the delayed vote disappointed them, Democratic leaders in the Senate took heart from legislation endorsements from some high-profile Republicans, including former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

The Senate Finance Committee is expected to clear its long-debated, intensely scrutinized bill this week. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) said a vote originally expected by today had been pushed back, because the Congressional Budget Office is still crunching cost and coverage numbers.

The latest version of the Finance bill will cover fewer people, after senators last week softened penalties for not carrying health insurance. Stabenow said she expected it would cover 92 percent or 93 percent of Americans, down from about 95 percent in earlier versions. The penalties were reduced because there is not enough money in the $900 billion, 10-year bill to provide subsidies for all middle-class households.

White House budget director Peter Orszag acknowledged the problem. "There's no doubt there's a trade-off," he told an Associated Press reporter.

The panel's vote is expected to be close, and passage could hinge on a handful of senators who have indicated that the CBO's report may sway them.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) already has begun informal discussions with senators and White House officials about merging the Finance Committee's bill with another, passed by a different Senate committee in July. Reid's talks are intended to establish areas of broad policy agreement so that official negotiations can focus on thornier issues, Reid spokesman Jim Manley said.

As for the Republicans, Thompson teamed with former House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D., Mo.) in citing some "troublesome and unresolved" issues in the Finance Committee's bill. The two men urged Congress nevertheless to overcome its differences and get the job done. "Failure to reach an agreement on health reform this year is not an acceptable option," Thompson and Gephardt wrote. "It is time for action."

Mark McClellan, like Thompson a prominent member of President George W. Bush's administration, also urged lawmakers to seize the moment.

"The health-care problems facing this country are urgent and large, and we need to do something about them," said McClellan, a former Medicare and Medicaid administrator who is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. "I don't want to miss this opportunity."

Their comments came on the heels of Frist telling Time magazine that he "would end up voting for" reform were he still a Tennessee senator.

Frist, a heart surgeon, later qualified his position, saying that the Finance Committee bill is "not where I want it to be. It's going to cost way too much, and we're not going to get all the uninsured into the marketplace."

Meanwhile, President Obama held a pep rally for about 150 doctors at the White House yesterday, urging them to use their professional clout to keep the pressure on Congress.

"If you're willing to speak out strongly on behalf of the things you care about and what you see each and every day as you're serving patients all across the country, I'm confident we are going to get health reform passed this year," the president told the doctors, who wore white lab coats.