The Senate began debate on the Democratic drafted health-overhaul legislation estimated to cost $848 billion over ten years. And the battle lines were clearly drawn.

As NPR's Dave Welna reported on the network's newscast:

Majority leader Harry Reid kicked off the Senate debate on the healthcare overhaul with a word of warning to his colleagues about their December work schedule:

REID: The next weekends, plural, we will be working. I have events, uh, this weekend that I'll have to postpone, some I'll have to cancel. That's the way it's going to have to be with everyone. There is not an issue more important than finishing this legislation.

Not so, said Minority leader Mitch McConnell:

MCCONNELL: There are many things we must do this month. And yet we're going to spend an enormous amount of time working on a bill that the American people wish we would not pass.

McConnell vowed that he and his GOP colleagues will work to defeat the bill if they fail to change it.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation provided a report Monday to Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) in which they concluded that the Senate bill would boost non-group insurance premiums by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent.