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WASHINGTON - A day after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would put a public option into the health care bill he sends to the floor, it was clear he had not yet found consensus on the legislation's most divisive issue.

By proposing to establish a national public insurance plan and give states the option to withdraw from it, Reid may have revived momentum for liberals' top health care agenda item. But yesterday he was still working on getting the 60 votes he needs to pass it over an expected Republican filibuster.

Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said he would vote with Republicans to block final passage of a bill containing a public insurance option, even with an opt-out provision, because it would ``create a whole new federal government entitlement program for which taxpayers will eventually be on the line, and at a time when taxpayers are deep enough on the line and our national government is in the biggest debt it's ever been in.''

Some moderate Democrats declined to take a position. ``I'm not going to make up my mind until I see the bill,'' said Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Strategically, by proposing to include a public option in the bill, Reid transferred a heavy political burden from his own shoulders to those of conservative-leaning Democrats. If Reid's public option fails, progressive activists will have them to blame.

At the same time, the Nevada Democrat ingratiated himself with liberals, whose help he will need in a challenging reelection campaign next year. And, having tested exactly how far the Senate will go, he may arrive in a stronger position in negotiations with the House, which is almost certain to pass a stronger version of the public option, on a possible final bill to send to President Obama.

``What Senator Reid did yesterday helps to create an environment in which the American people now know we can no longer debate whether we will have a public option, but [rather] what form it will take,'' said Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking Democrat in the House.

An air of jumpy uncertainty pervaded the Senate side of the Capitol yesterday, as packs of reporters surrounded senators on their way to their weekly luncheons to ask them about Reid's proposal. Senator Max Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman, said, a bit wearily: ``This is not a public option bill. This is a health care reform bill.''

But there was also a growing sense of anticipation as the vote at last drew closer. Many Democrats said they believed the health care bill had turned a critical corner.

``I can't exactly prove it to you, but I know in my soul, in my gut, that the momentum is moving our direction, that we are unified in our purpose . . . the American people care and we are going to end up with a bill,'' said Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat.

Senator Thomas Carper, a Delaware Democrat, said he is working on a proposal that would automatically establish a public option in states where private insurers fail to offer affordable coverage and would allow other states to ``opt in'' if they chose - a concept that incorporates the ``trigger'' proposal offered by Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine. Snowe, the only Republican who voted for the Senate Finance Committee bill, said yesterday she would not support a bill with the opt-out provision because it would not first allow the private sector a chance to compete in a more tightly regulated marketplace.

Carper's idea, which he joked he might christen ``the 60-vote option,'' might bring along Maine's junior senator, Republican Susan Collins, who said yesterday she could not support Reid's opt-out proposal.

``I don't see the opt-out as being any kind of compromise at all,'' Collins said.

House members were still arguing yesterday about smaller issues that could imperil their bill, including language on abortion. Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, said he had 40 colleagues willing to vote ``no'' on a procedural hurdle for the bill unless it was changed to explicitly bar government funding for abortions.

But backers of the health care overhaul said they do not believe their colleagues will hold up such a momentous piece of legislation over smaller issues - or even over the public option.

``My sense is that the Democrats in the House and the Senate understand that this is probably the most important domestic legislation since civil rights,'' said Senator Paul G. Kirk Jr., Democrat of Massachusetts. ``Failure is not an option here. I don't think there is anyone in the caucus who will allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.''

And Stupak also said he wasn't holding the entire package hostage to the issue. ``Nobody wants to sabotage anything,'' he said.