WRAPUP 2-US Senate panel rejects Republican healthcare delay

* US Senate panel resumes slow consideration of healthcare

* Panel rejects Republican call for delay in final vote

* Republicans demand committee slow down its debate

WASHINGTON, Sept 23 - The Senate Finance Committee rejected a Republican effort on Wednesday to delay a final vote on a broad healthcare overhaul as it slowly battled through a crush of amendments on its cost, size and timing.

Republicans demanded more information on the bill's budgetary impact and called for the Democratic-controlled panel to slow its deliberations on Chairman Max Baucus's healthcare reform plan, which he hopes to bring to a final vote this week.

Democrats said the requests were a tactic to stall President Barack Obama's top domestic priority, a broad overhaul of the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry that would rein in costs, regulate insurers and expand coverage to many of the 46 million uninsured people living in the United States.

In its first roll-call vote, the panel rejected Republican Senator Jim Bunning's proposal for a delay before a final committee vote so the bill's language could be finalized and posted on the Internet, and budget experts could estimate its full cost.

"Slow it down so we can get it right before we vote on this bill," Republican Senator John Ensign had urged the committee.

Baucus said Bunning's proposal would create at least a two-week delay before the Congressional Budget Office could conclude its final analysis of the bill.

"We've never, ever, ever done that in this committee," Baucus said.

Instead, the panel approved on a party-line vote Baucus's pledge to post a preliminary CBO cost estimate on the committee website before a final vote.

The panel began working its way through hundreds of amendments to the Baucus plan, the last of five bills pending in Congress on a healthcare overhaul that has been slowed by intense political skirmishing and criticism from all sides.

Baucus ruled out of order several Republican amendments to revise sections of the bill on Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly. The panel backed his rulings on party-line votes.

'SLOW WALK'

"There is a substantial slow walk taking place in this committee," Democrat John Rockefeller complained about the Republican amendments as the panel made little headway by midday.

Republicans repeatedly have called for slower consideration of the healthcare overhaul, which Democratic supporters have tried to fast-track to create momentum and prevent opposition from building as it did during an August congressional recess.

Baucus had adjusted his bill on Tuesday to address concerns from fellow Democrats about its affordability for consumers. He expanded subsidies to individuals, reduced penalties for not having insurance and adjusted a tax on high-cost insurance plans to ensure it does not hurt middle-class workers.

Under his plan, all U.S. citizens and legal residents would be required to obtain health insurance, with subsidies offered on a sliding scale to help people buy it. The plan would create state-based exchanges where individuals and small businesses could shop for insurance.

It does not include a new government-run insurance program -- widely called the "public option" -- that would compete with private insurers, which is included in the other four bills in Congress and is backed by Obama and liberal Democrats.

Instead the Baucus plan calls for the creation of nonprofit cooperatives as a way to ensure competition among insurers. Membership in the cooperatives would be offered through state insurance exchanges where small businesses and individuals could shop for health coverage.

Many liberal Democrats in both chambers have balked at the proposal. Amendments to be considered by the committee would strike that provision and instead put in a public option.

"I believe the best way to keep the insurance companies honest, as President Obama has said, is a robust public option in the legislation," House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation at the Capitol.

Pelosi has vowed a public option, strongly opposed by the insurance industry, will be included in a bill passed by the Democratic-controlled House. The insurance industry and some drug makers have lobbied against the healthcare overhaul.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said Congress should stand up to them. "We have got to show the American people that we can overcome the power of the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry. That's what its all about," he said.