Former President Bill Clinton is due to visit Capitol Hill today to talk healthcare reform with Senate Democrats and their independent allies.

The meeting’s important because Democrats have yet to find the 60 votes they need to stop Senate Republicans from blocking President Barack Obama’s signature domestic issue. House Democrats got their end of the job done over the weekend by passing landmark legislation.

Clinton’s presidency was overshadowed by his own failed bid to reform the healthcare system in the 1990s. But NBC said he could help sway Democrats wavering in the current debate, including Sen. Blanche Lincoln of his home state, Arkansas. 

A big obstacle that Clinton, Obama and Senate Democrats face seems as old as human nature: people who will cooperate — if they get their own way.

This time, a small clutch of moderates want their own way on the so-called public option, a proposal to offer government supported low-cost health coverage that is anathema to Republicans and the insurance industry.

Some senators are categorical about what they want.

For independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut — a state long associated with insurance interests — opposition to the public option is a moral issue. “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,” he said at the weekend on Fox News.

But his independent neighbor to the north, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, sounds like Lieberman’s polar opposite: “It would be outrageous to me, that when you have an overwhelming majority of Americans wanting a strong public option, that we do not deliver that.”

Others are not so categorical — until you get to the nitty gritty.

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska told NBC he could back a public option, but not if states have to make the effort to opt out. Why? Because he doesn’t want them in the system unless they want to be there.

“I don’t think there is anything to be gained by opting out,” Nelson said. “I would look at the ability of the states to opt in, so that the states could make the decisions themselves.”

It seems a small distinction but may prove important. Reform advocates fear their adversaries could easily defeat healthcare reform at the state level, where small numbers of health insurers can sometimes hold a near monopoly.

Obama hopes to sign a healthcare reform bill by the end of the year.

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Photo Credits: Reuters/Chip East (Clinton); Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Lincoln); Reuters/Mike Segar (Lieberman); Reuters/Chris Helgren (Sanders); Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Nelson)

Their mission is to handcuff some of the money President Barack Obama seeks in his budget request to Congress … deficit-spending that they fear will prey on future generations.

They are the “Mod Squad,” a group of about 15 Senate Democrats, some of them freshmen, whose tentative name reflects their moderate political leanings and is borrowed from a 1960s television drama.

“The purpose is not to be adversarial to the White House,” ringleader Ben Nelson of Nebraska told reporters on Thursday. Yes, it’s the very same Nelson who helped broker the compromise on the $787 billion economic stimulus bill.

But Nelson said many in the group are worried about the overall size of Obama’s budget — $3.55 trillion just for next year — and others fret about specific initiatives within the budget.

With Republicans already warning they could boycott the Democrats’ budget, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid just may have to pay attention to this group of moderate Democrats if he wants to get a budget passed this spring.

There’s plenty at stake: Obama’s budget proposal calls for significant expansions of environmental and education programs, establishing new accounts to expand health insurance to those who can’t afford it and to combat global warming, along with bringing U.S. combat troops out of Iraq.

“We don’t even have a name yet, or a mascot,” Nelson quipped. But when asked about possible names, he was quick to blurt out a possibility: “Mod Squad. I just threw that out.”

No details yet on specific programs the gang might want to arrest in the budget.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Senator Ben Nelson with reporters last month)

U.S. Senate Democrats had less than 70 minutes to spare when they finally filed the paperwork on Saturday for the compromise they reached with a handful of Republicans for the $827 billion economic stimulus package, setting up a vote for early next week.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had hoped to file the specific language much earlier on Saturday but drafting took significantly longer. The compromise measure, some 778 pages long, was brokered by Republican Senator Susan Collins and Democratic Senator Ben Nelson.

With the paperwork filed, that will set a vote for 5:30 p.m. EST on Monday to wrap up debate on the stimulus package. If there are 60 votes, the Senate will vote on passing the legislation on Tuesday

Had the Democrats filed after midnight, that potentially could have delayed the votes and hampered their goal to get the legislation on President Barack Obama’s desk by Feb. 16 as he has sought.

Senators spent a few hours on Saturday afternoon debating the stimulus plan, with Republicans complaining that they were being rushed while Democrats said there was no time to lose to get the package done.

If the Senate approves the package of spending and tax cuts, lawmakers will have to work out differences with it and an $819 billion bill that the House of Representatives passed last week before it could be sent to Obama for his signature.

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Senators Collins and Nelson discuss the compromise on the economic stimulus package on Friday)