WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders said Monday that they were prepared to drop a proposed expansion of Medicare and make other changes in sweeping health legislation as they tried to rally their caucus in hopes of passing the bill before Christmas.
After a tense 90-minute meeting on Monday evening, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee, was asked if Democrats were likely to jettison the Medicare proposal.
“It’s looking like that’s the case,” Mr. Baucus said, indicating that the provision might be scrapped as a way of “getting support from 60 senators.”
Under the proposal, uninsured people ages 55 to 64 could purchase Medicare coverage. The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, floated the idea about 10 days ago as a way to break an intraparty impasse over his earlier proposal to create a government-run health insurance plan.
The signal from the party leadership came after the closed-door session to gauge sentiment for moving ahead with a pared-back measure that would not contain elements that liberal lawmakers had sought, particularly a public health insurance option.
Lawmakers and top aides said that the overriding view at the session held just off the Senate floor was that they had come too far in the health care debate to give up and that they should forge ahead with some legislation even if it was not all that they wanted.
After the meeting, lawmakers said they believed that chances were increased for completing a health care bill and that a final product would be a substantial improvement over the current system.
“If you compared it to the alternative, it looks good,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, about the prospect of moving ahead with a measure that does not have a public health insurance option. “If you compare it to the possibilities, it looks pretty sad.”
Democrats were scheduled to meet Tuesday at the White House with President Obama to discuss health care. The party meeting in the Capitol came at a crucial time since the leadership must begin taking procedural steps if Democrats hope to reach a final vote on a health care plan sometime next week.
At a brief news conference after the caucus meeting, Mr. Reid refused to answer questions. He said: “This is like a steeplechase race. The last big puddle is in front of us.”
Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the health committee, appeared to be laying the groundwork for a decision to abandon the Medicare buy-in.
“There is enough good in this bill that we ought to move it” even without the Medicare buy- in, Mr. Harkin said. Among the most important provisions of the bill, he said, are stringent new federal regulation of health insurance and coverage for a wide range of preventive health services.
Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said, “If dropping the Medicare expansion is necessary, that’s what should be done.” He reported that “there was some disappointment by some members that some of the provisions could not be retained.”
The idea of expanding Medicare to cover younger members of the public ran into trouble this weekend when Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, indicated he would not vote for that proposal. Given the need for Democrats to keep Mr. Lieberman in the fold, Democrats sought to find ways to ease his objections. Mr. Lieberman and Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska and another potential Democratic defector, were both in the private meeting but did not speak, lawmakers said.
Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who switched parties earlier this year to become a Democrat, urged his colleagues not to let obstructionists stand in the way. “I came to this caucus to be your 60th vote,” he said to a round of applause, according to observers. Democrats need 60 votes to pass the health care bill over Republican objections.