Jim Webb

Jim Webb

In response to a Republican victory in the state of Massachusetts, Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, and calls to the leaders of the Senate vote on a suspension of Democratic health care legislation so that the winner of the elections for the Senate, Scott Brown, took office.

In a statement, Mr. Webb, who voted for the health care bill in December, congratulated Mr. Brown on his election victory and said he looked forward to working with him. But he also said Democrats should be aware of the implications of the wider election results.

“In many respects the campaign in the state of Massachusetts has become a referendum not only on the reform of the health care system but also the openness and integrity in our process of government formation,” said Mr. Web. “It is important to restore respect for the American people in our system of government and our leaders. To this end, I think that it would not be fair and wise to comment on more of the vote,health care legislation to Senator-elect Brown was sitting.”

Top Democrats have indicated they do not want to rush in health care through legislation in the Senate by Mr. Brown could be sworn. Instead, she looks a backup plan to ask the Democrats in the House of Representatives to adopt the Senate bill as health care, which would be sent directly to President Obama to sign it.

But a quick reaction on the part of Mr. Webb, a centrist, is evidence of early on that Democratic leaders may find themselves struggling to maintain the coherence of support for the measure ofhealth care . The support of the bill was always flimsy, and the leaders of political parties and prepare for the possibility that the Democrats who previously supported the bill could turn against them.