WRAPUP 3-U.S. healthcare measure faces tough path in Senate

(For full coverage of U.S. healthcare reform, click [nN20512341])

* Narrow House win shifts healthcare battle to US Senate

* Health bill faces tough Senate path to passage

* Critics promise renewed fight to block bill (Adds Obama comments, paragraph 4)

By John Whitesides

WASHINGTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - After a landmark win in the U.S. House of Representatives, President Barack Obama's push for healthcare reform faces a difficult path in the Senate amid divisions in his own Democratic Party on how to proceed.

On a 220-215 vote, including the support of one Republican and opposition from 39 Democrats, the House backed a bill late on Saturday that would expand coverage to nearly all Americans and bar insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.

The battle now shifts to the Senate, where work on Obama's top domestic priority has been stalled for weeks as Democratic leader Harry Reid searches for an approach that can win the 60 votes he needs to overcome Republican procedural hurdles.

"Take this baton and bring this effort to the finish line," Obama urged senators on Sunday in an appearance at the White House, saying passage of healthcare reform would represent "their finest moment in public service."

Democrats have no margin for error -- they control exactly 60 seats in the 100-member Senate. Some moderate Democrats have rebelled at Reid's plan to include a new government-run insurance program, known as the "public option," in the bill.

Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, renewed his promise on Sunday to help Republicans block a final vote if the bill contains the government-run insurance option backed by Senate liberals.

"If the public option plan is in there, as a matter of conscience, I will not allow this bill to come to a final vote," Lieberman said on "Fox News Sunday."

Republicans and some moderate Democrats have balked at the House bill's $1 trillion price tag, new taxes on the wealthy and what they call a heavy-handed government intrusion in the private sector.

The overhaul would lead to the biggest changes in the $2.5 trillion healthcare system -- which accounts for one-sixth of the U.S. economy -- since the 1965 creation of the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES

The House bill includes a different version of the public option than the Senate. Senate Democrats also may not adopt the House bill's requirement that all but the smallest employers offer coverage to their workers and its new tax on the wealthiest Americans to pay for the reforms.