Obama's health care Bill faces uphill battle in Senate

Washington: The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Barack Obama as Democrats realised the Bill they fought so hard to pass in the House of Representatives has nowhere to go in the Senate.

Speaking from the White House about 14 hours after the late Saturday vote, Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and "take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people".

The problem is that the Senate won't run with it. The government health insurance plan included in the House Bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate.

If a government plan is part of the deal, "as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this Bill to come to a final vote," said Senator Joe Lieberman, the independent whose vote Democrats need to overcome Republican manoeuvres to kill the Bill. He spoke on the Fox television network.

"The House Bill is dead on arrival in the Senate," Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, said dismissively on the CBS network.

Obama has made reforming the US health care system a priority for his administration.