WASHINGTON — As she pulls together a health care bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been exceedingly direct, lawmakers say, asking them explicitly what it will take to win their vote.
Across the Rotunda, Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, is trying a different tack, acting like what one participant in closed-door sessions described as a coach, urging key chairmen not to get bogged down in pride of authorship and to keep their eyes on the legislative ball.
While they might have different styles and different sets of Democrats to assemble behind separate proposals, Pelosi and Reid have an identical goal: passage this year of a major health care overhaul.
Achieving that end and enacting a top priority of President Barack Obama will present perhaps the stiffest test yet of the skills of the two congressional leaders.
How they perform could influence not only the political fate of their own colleagues, but the standing of the administration as well.
No one expects it to be easy.
"It is not painless to do this," said Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., who oversaw the legislation generated by the Senate health committee.
Reid and Pelosi are at the moment working independently to merge sweeping health care bills produced by two committees in the Senate and three in the House into bills that each must squeeze through the respective chambers. Then, Democrats hope, they will negotiate one final version between them before sending it to Obama's desk.
Pelosi, who has been meeting incessantly with fellow Democrats, said she was now focused on producing the strongest possible legislation that can pass the House to provide her side of the Capitol with as much leverage as possible in talks with the Senate.
"I'm not into dealing with the politics of the Senate," she said last week. "They do their policy and their politics. We meet them at the conference table, and that's where we will deal with that."
Reid, similarly, said that he was focused on devising a bill that could win the 60 votes needed to overcome a likely Republican filibuster and could not yet turn to any task beyond that.
The challenge for Pelosi is to write a measure with sufficient coverage and benefits to appease the left wing of her caucus without alienating too many of the moderate and conservative Democrats whose votes she needs.
"She's tough," said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader. "She's a great negotiator. She knows at some point in time, she has got to get to 218."
Reid might have the more difficult job since Pelosi has a larger majority as well as stricter House rules that limit opportunities for Republicans to slow the process.
Reid has to come up with a bill that can win at least procedural backing from virtually all 58 Democratic senators and two independents aligned with his party. That will mean bringing together Democrats who are pushing for a public option and centrist Democrats opposed to the idea, all while holding Republicans at bay.
