As reported by Kathy, the Senate has voted to table the Nelson amendment on abortion. The vote was 54-45 with seven Democrats voting no and two Republicans voting yes.
I think this signals serious trouble for the health care bill in the Senate. A 54-45 vote will not get you past the 60 votes needed for cloture and two of those yes votes were Snowe and Collins, both of which have expressed doubts about the health care bill.
If the seven Democrats who voted against tabling the bill decide to vote against the overall bill because it has abortion funding, then this bill is dead. Indeed, assuming the GOP holds firm against the bill you would then need six out of the seven votes against tabling the bill to switch and vote for the bill with the funding provisions.
And if the bill does pass the Senate then they’d still have a conflict because the House bill has the rider. So we would have to revisit the issue later.
Some on the left may consider this a victory but I think in the long run it will be a loss.