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WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House is on a collision course with Catholic bishops in an intractable dispute over abortion that could blow up the fragile political coalition behind President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

A top Obama administration official on Thursday praised the new Senate health care bill's attempt to find a compromise on abortion coverage - even as an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Sen. Harry Reid's bill is the worst he's seen so far on the divisive issue.

The bishops were instrumental in getting tough anti-abortion language adopted by the House, forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to accept restrictions that outraged liberals as the price for passing the Democratic health care bill. Reid, D-Nev., now faces a similar choice: Ultimately, he will need the votes of Democratic senators who oppose abortion to get his bill through the Senate.

So far, Reid has steered the Senate bill in a direction that abortion rights supporters can live with: allowing coverage for abortion in federally subsidized health care plans, provided that private funds are used to pay for the procedure. But abortion opponents say his compromise would gut current federal restrictions on abortion funding.

GOP senators and governors stepped up their opposition to the bill Thursday, assailing the measure as a collection of tax increases, Medicare cuts and heavy new burdens for states.

Despite criticism, there were growing indications Reid would prevail on an initial Senate showdown set for Saturday night. He needs a 60-vote majority to advance the bill toward full debate, expected to begin after Thanksgiving and last for weeks. It's during that debate that the battle over abortion will be joined in earnest. Reid will need to clear another 60-vote hurdle before senators cast their final vote on the bill.

At the White House on Thursday, health reform director Nancy Ann DeParle praised Reid's effort to find a compromise on abortion.

"It was carefully worked through by the leader, who cares a lot about making sure this maintains the status quo on abortion policy," DeParle told reporters. Obama has said he wants the bill to remain neutral on abortion, and DeParle said Reid struck just the right balance.

But Richard Doerflinger, associate director of the bishops' conference Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, said Reid's "is actually the worst bill we've seen so far on the life issues."

He called it "completely unacceptable," adding that "to say this reflects current law is ridiculous."

The legislation is designed to answer Obama's call to expand coverage, end industry practices such as denying coverage to people with health problems and restrain the growth of health care spending.

Democrats put the price tag of the 2,074-page measure at $979 billion, higher than the $849 billion figure they had cited Wednesday as the cost of expanding coverage to 31 million who now lack insurance. Republicans calculated it at more like $1.5 trillion over a decade and said even that was understated because Reid decided to delay implementation of some of the bill's main features until 2014.

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