From Nevada to Washington, calls were mounting Tuesday for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to apologize for comparing opponents of health care reform to supporters of slavery.

The antagonistic comment, made on the Senate floor Monday, came at a sensitive time for health care reform, with Democratic leaders trying to push a compromise by the holidays, and in the middle of Reid's heated race for re-election in Nevada. The remark did not bode well for either effort.

Senate Republicans blasted Reid for the comparison, calling it "offensive" and "unbelievable" and suggesting he was starting to "crack" under the pressure of the health care reform effort...

An immigration reform organization says a glaring loophole in the proposed Senate healthcare legislation (H.R. 3590) will potentially allow millions of illegal immigrants to be eligible for insurance, effectively tripling the financial burden on American taxpayers.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) said Monday that the end is in sight on passage of a sweeping healthcare overhaul. The Democratic leader said the 10-year, nearly one-trillion-dollar Senate bill (would expand coverage to some 30 million uninsured and bar insurance company practices of denying coverage to those with a medical history. The Senate began its eighth day of debate on Monday...

(CNSNews.com) – The head of the Republican Party says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) “wandered far out of bounds” when he compared Republicans to those who opposed the abolition of slavery.

In a speech on the Senate floor Monday, Reid plugged his health care reform bill and criticized Republicans for not supporting the legislation:

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘Slow down, stop everything, let’s start over,’ ” Reid said...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Senate was on Monday to begin debating a massive health care reform bill that is a key priority for President Barack Obama but faces stiff Republican opposition and is plagued by divisions in Democratic ranks.

Debate is to begin Monday morning on the measure to overhaul the US health care system, at an estimated cost of 848 billion dollars through 2019, but a final Senate vote on the bill is not expected for a month at the earliest.

The administration hailed the November 22 vote that cleared the way for debate to begin, but Senate Majority Harry Reid faces a tough challenge constructing a coalition strong enough to get the bill out of the Senate...

CNSNews.com - When asked where specifically the Constitution authorized Congress to mandate that individuals buy health insurance, Sen. Jack Reed (D.-R.I.) said that he “would have to check the specific sections” but said that it was like making people “sign up for the draft."

“Specifically where in the Constitution does Congress get its authority to mandate that individuals purchase health insurance?” CNSNews.com asked Reed.

“Let me see,” said Reed. “I would have to check the specific sections, so I’ll have to get back to you on the specific section. But it is not unusual that the Congress has required individuals to do things, like sign up for the draft and do many other things too, which I don’t think are explicitly contained [in the Constitution]. It gives Congress a right to raise an army, but it doesn’t say you can take people and draft them.

A congressional analyst says abortion funding, cost, and the public option will be the central points of the debate that is set to begin in the U.S. Senate on healthcare legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), in an effort to win the vote of Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana), included language in the Senate bill that would specifically increase federal Medicaid subsidies for Louisiana. It was initially reported that the earmark cost was $100 million, but Landrieu corrected the record, saying: "It's $300 million, and I'm proud of it and will keep fighting for it."

Brian Darling, director of Senate relations for The Heritage Foundation, predicts there will be more pay-off attempts when debate begins in the Senate on November 30...

Conservatives say that although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got the votes he needed Saturday night to push the health reform bill on to the next phase, the battle is far from over.

The final vote was 60 to 39 with all Democrat Senators supporting the more than two thousand page bill.

Two final Democratic holdouts, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, announced they would join in clearing the way for a full debate which is expected to begin after the Thanksgiving break.

Conservatives were quick to condemn the Democrats...

WASHINGTON – Invoking the name of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally...

A healthcare policy expert says there are details in the Senate healthcare bill that will frighten everyone.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has unveiled his more than 2,000-page healthcare bill with an estimated price tag of $849 billion. However, as Grace Marie Turner of the Galen Institute points out, one of the reasons the bill was scored under President Obama's $900 billion cost goal is because no one gets any benefit from the program until 2014.

"So they start collecting taxes and fees now, and...the first ten years of full implementation of this bill is $2.5 trillion, and that's only the beginning," Turner explains. "So this does not in any way...meet President Obama's budget specification. And there are all sorts of tricks that they have pulled in this bill to try to pretend that it's deficit-neutral"...

Under pressure from the White House, Majority Leader Harry Reid says he plans to bring a health care reform package to the floor of the Senate next week, and his goal is to see it passed by the end of the year.

But he faces an uphill climb in getting the required 60 votes necessary to start debate.

First, Reid is awaiting final word from the Congressional Budget Office on costs and coverage implications of the still-secret bill he submitted more than two weeks ago...