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We all knew this was coming, right? On this week's Face the Nation, Olympia Snowe cites the lack of time for Republicans to further amend the health care bill none of them ever had any intention of voting for as the reason she won't vote for it. Steve Benen has more this:

By all appearances, the White House, from the outset, made an effort to garner bipartisan support for health care reform. At least in the Senate, that now appears impossible. Democrats no longer need Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) vote, but they sought it out anyway, to no avail.

Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican who had been considered a possible Democratic ally, said she would oppose the measure because it was being rushed. "It is a take-it-or-leave-it package," she said.

I just can't figure out what on earth Snowe is talking about. She voted with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee reform plan, but now appears to be looking for an excuse to oppose the effort. But to sound even remotely credible, Snowe will have to do better than this.

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I agree. Weak indeed. How's the bipartisanship working out for you President Obama? Snowe reminds me of her buddy Susan Collins talking about wanting to "improve" a bill she had no intention of voting for either. As Steve notes in his post, both of them have had ample chance to make this bill as bad as it is now.

Transcript via CQ Politics below the fold.

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Let the abortion fear mongering from the GOP begin on the Nelson compromise. From The Hill -- Coburn: Nelson agreement with leaders 'threw unborn babies under the bus':

A number of Republican senators attacked an agreement reached between Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Senate Democratic leaders Saturday, saying it would lead to the eventual reversal of more than 30 years of federal law banning abortion funding.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oka.) said it is “absolutely fictitious” that there is an anti-abortion provision in the Senate Democrats’ reworked healthcare reform bill.

“The negotiations, whoever did them, threw unborn babies under the bus,” Coburn said.

[...]

“The abortion language in this bill funds abortion for the first time since 1977,” said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas). “We are told this is a pro-life bill. It is not.”

The agreement reached between Nelson and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will give states the choice to ban abortion coverage or not in the insurance exchanges the legislation creates. The deal will also separate premiums from insurance plans that pay for abortion from federal money.

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Susan Collins wants to offer amendments to the health care bill that she will not vote for in order to "improve" it. From Digby:

This is what I was talking about last night when I wrote "this bill probably isn't bad enough for Lieberman and his cronies to allow Democrats to commit political suicide with it."

Nobody who has announced that they will not vote for this bill should be allowed to "improve" it at this point. Unless, of course, the point is to take out every remaining piece that could even slightly offset the mandate. Which it might be. After all, Republicans are really messed up these days and need something clean and simple to run on. The least the Democrats can do is help them out.

I agree. They should not be allowing this, but they've been doing that from day one with all of the Republican amendments that were accepted in the Finance Committee. Heaven forbid they might stop now.

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Sen. Tom Coburn, after first claiming that the Republicans aren't just looking out for the insurance industry goes on to say this about why the Senate passed the Mikulski breast screening amendment.

Coburn: Because we know a larger percentage of the emotional attraction has to do with those things associated with women. So we pounded our chest and passed the Mikulski bill for preventative care for women and we ignored the preventative requirements of everybody else in this country.

Fail. They passed the Mikulski amendment because the media and the GOP decided to make an issue out of the findings from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that said women didn't need to get screened for breast cancer in their forties, not because anyone's "more emotional" about issues relating to women.

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Sherrod Brown explains to David Shuster why he signed decided to co-sponsor Tom Coburn and David Vitter's amendment which would require members of Congress to enroll in whatever version of the public option ends up being passed in the health care bill.

Brown: Yeah, you often find out about amendments going on on the Senate floor and if my staff and I like one of the amendments we'll call an office and say, Republican or Democrat, I'd like to co-sponsor. We do that as a matter of course it happens across party lines all the time, hundreds of times a day. We did that with Sen. Coburn, nine times we said we wanted to co-sponsor--usually it takes once and they say yes--I've always accepted that. So has everybody I know in the Senate. Nine times we asked to co-sponsor and their office either just said we'll get back to you or ignored our calls and our emails because it was all a sham.

They don't, they clearly don't like the public option. They were making fun of it. Their whole game is to delay and deceive and to play political games. And when they offer an amendment saying sign up for the public option to force--tell members of Congress they have to join the public option--I think I should. I think we all should but they don't evenn like it themselves. And so it's just a little partisan game they're playing, and this is too serious for them to play those kind of games.

From Salon's War Room--Coburn, Vitter plan to ridicule public option backfires:

Now, as the Senate's debate over its version of reform legislation kicks into gear, two Republicans -- Sens. Tom Coburn and David Vitter -- have picked up that theme and are running with it. The two authored an amendment they want attached to the bill; it would require members of Congress to enroll in whatever version of the public option the final legislation creates, if it includes one.

Both Coburn and Vitter are vehement opponents of the public option, and they're hoping to prove themselves right by showing that no senator who's in his or her right mind would want their healthcare covered by it. They've gotten a surprise, though: Genuine support for their amendment from someone on the other side of the aisle -- and a proponent of the public option, at that -- Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

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Senators Franken, Dodd, and Mikulski also joined Sen. Brown in co-sponsoring the amendment. Here's Sen. Franken weighing in on the Senate floor.

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November 17, 2009 FOX News

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Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday asks Sen. Mitch McConnell if the Republicans can prevent the health care bill from coming to the Senate floor. McConnell could not say whether they had the votes to block it from going to the floor for debate, but vowed to stall the bill with "a lot of amendments over a lot of weeks".

Oh boy. I wonder if we'll get to see any Republican Senators using babies as props or similar nonsense as they drag this thing out?

WALLACE: Let's turn to health care reform. Senate Democrats are expected to bring a bill to the floor this week. Do you have the 41 votes in the Senate to prevent them from even bringing it to the floor?

MCCONNELL: Well, what we do know for sure, Chris, is this is a bill that cuts Medicare, raises taxes and raises insurance premiums.

We know it's been in Harry Reid's office for six weeks and the other 99 senators have not seen it. I think we ought to at least have as much time for the other 99 senators and all of the American people to take a look at this bill as Majority Leader Reid has had.

The only way to guarantee that for sure would be to delay the process to allow everyone to fully understand what's in the bill.

And then if there are 60 senators who want to go to this bill, even though the administration's own actuary, somebody who works in the administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, has said that it will drive the cost of health care up and that it will hurt seniors -- if they still want to go to it, then we'll have the debate.

And when we get on the -- on the bill, if we do, there will be a lot of amendments over a lot of weeks. I mean, the Senate is not the House. You saw in the House three votes and it was over in one day.

Look, we spent four weeks on a farm bill in the last Congress, eight weeks on an energy bill earlier this decade. This will be on the floor for quite a long time. I think it ought to be on the floor at least as long as it's been in Harry Reid's office.

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Well isn't this lovely? 64 Democrats decided to sell out women's health with this horrid vote.

Final vote tally 240-194 with Shadegg voting present.

Word is it will be stripped out in committee. We'll see. I agree with Rayne over at FDL--Stupak Amendment Passes; 64 Dems Ask for Primary Opponents.

Final roll call for the Stupak amendment with the yeas and nays here.

And here's the roll call for the final bill. Ayes 220 with one Republican, Cao, voting yes, noes 215.