Sen. Dick Durbin had another busy weekend. The Senate Majority Whip is hustling to cut deals on some of the more contentious issues dividing Democrats as they hash out health care reform legislation. We will get to those debates shortly. First, check out this video of the Illinois' senior senator on the floor Saturday afternoon. In it, he takes Republicans to task for what he calls their "newfound belief in Medicare." "Historically, that party has not stood to fight for Medicare," he added. "They've stood to fight Medicare." Watch it:

Now, onto the intra-party squabbles. The first is over abortion rights, which might be addressed today. Anti-choice Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is expected to introduce an amendment mirroring the restrictive Stupak House motion in an effort to limit elective abortion coverage from both private and public insurers on the insurance exchanges. The good news is that members of the upper chamber are stronger on reproductive rights than their counterparts in the House. Combine those demographics with the 60-vote threshold needed to clear procedural votes and it's very unlikely that such restrictive language will be added to the bill.

But what does the Senate leadership do about Nelson, who has already pledged to join in a GOP filibuster if his demands aren't met? That's the big question mark. Even Nelson admits that "it's certainly not a lock that there's language in the middle." If no compromise can be reached, look for the White House to divert their attention to Maine's two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both of whom might be gettable votes and are supportive of abortion rights.

The other lightning rod is the public option. With senators like Nelson, Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and others pledging to kill any version of the government-run plan previously proposed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and a cadre of liberal senators are going back to the drawing board. According to Hill reporters, they seem to have settled on a different approach altogether: using the Office of Personnel Management to regulate a network of nationally-based, non-profit plans. Ezra Klein explains:

The compromise being discussed is built atop that provision. The idea is that the Office of Personnel Management would choose nonprofit plans that met national standards and offer them on every state exchange (unless states opted out). These plans would be private, but the OPM would act as an aggressive purchaser, ensuring that they met high standards and conducted themselves properly. It's a private option with a public filter, essentially. But more importantly, it's a menu of national, nonprofit plans, which would be much more interesting from a competitive standpoint than state-based, public plans.

"Moderate" Democrats have found reason to criticize virtually every iteration of the public option previously offered, so it would not be surprising in the slightest if they found something objectionable with this one, as well. There's also a chance liberals could reject is as too weak. For example, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, which Congress uses, is already administered by OPM. So far, it's not held down costs too effectively. But it's another plan on the table.

If Reid and company choose to follow this path, liberals are also pressuring leadership to give them something in return, such as higher subsides for working families. We've already discussed the imbalanced incentives facing health care reform advocates on the left as opposed to wary legislators in the center, but it's a good thing the issues are being raised now. If the public option is going to be eviscerated, supporters should be compensated for standing aside.