Republicans want Democratic healthcare defectors

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House sought to downplay differences on Sunday between the two versions of healthcare legislation passed in Congress as Democrats prepared to meld them into one, while a top Republican saw "great unrest" and perhaps more party-switchers among Democrats.

The Senate passed its version of healthcare reform, President Barack Obama''s top legislative priority, on Thursday with no Republicans voting for it. The House of Representatives passed its bill on November 7 with just one Republican vote.

Democratic lawmakers in early January will begin the tricky task of resolving differences between the two versions, such as whether to keep a new government-run insurance program as the House envisions, how to craft language to restrict abortion funding, and what approach to use to pay for the overhaul.

Republicans vowed to keep battling to block it and expressed hope some Democrats may yet turn against it.

"The bill is not law yet," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on ABC''s "This Week" program, adding that there were rumors of more possible Democratic defections amid unhappiness over the healthcare proposals.

U.S. Representative Parker Griffith of Alabama switched parties on December 22 and became a Republican.

"There is great unrest in the Democratic Party," McConnell said. "The reason for that is the surveys (opinion polls) indicate the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to have the government take over all of their healthcare."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, on NBC''s "Meet the Press," downplayed differences between the House and Senate bills, calling them "virtually identical" in key provisions.

"The major parts of healthcare reform that the president sought to have enacted as a candidate are now very close to happening, and he thinks the commonality between the two proposals overlaps quite a bit," Gibbs said.

Once Democratic lawmakers craft a single, unified bill, the House and Senate would have to pass it again before Obama can sign it into law. The overhaul would forge the biggest changes in the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system since the 1965 creation of the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

One possible sticking point in the House-Senate bill is over the so-called public option, the proposed government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers -- an idea very popular among liberal Democrats. The Senate discarded the idea in its bill, but the House included it.

''I''M ALL FOR IT''

Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, a member of the House Democratic leadership, said on Sunday he could back a bill with no public option if it still had coverage choices and kept costs in check while making insurance firms compete.