WASHINGTON – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to bring a health-care-overhaul bill to the Senate floor that includes a government insurance plan was met with skepticism yesterday from party moderates and hostility from Republicans.Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I., Conn.), who caucuses with the majority Democrats, said he was “inclined to support” a procedural motion to bring the bill to the Senate floor but remained opposed to a federal-government plan in any form – even with the “opt out” provision for states that Reid (D., Nev.) said Monday he would include in the bill.

“I really want to get to yes,” Lieberman said. But unless the public-option language is dropped, he said he would likely align with Republicans to block final passage.

Other party moderates said they remained undecided on the opt-out public plan.

“I’m skeptical about what Sen. Reid has proposed,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.). Like Lieberman, she opposes a national, government-run insurance plan that would compete with the private sector. But Landrieu gave Reid slightly more leeway, noting that she would “stay open to a principled compromise.”

Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D., Del.), a Finance Committee member who prefers any public option to be run by a nonprofit board rather than the government, said: “This is not the end. This is not the beginning of the end. This is the end of the beginning.”

The proposed public option has been the main flash point in both the House and Senate as Democrats struggle to pass legislation that would extend coverage to millions of uninsured, ban insurance-industry practices such as denying coverage for preexisting medical conditions, and slow the growth of health-care spending.

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