Ms. Snowe supported the health care bill in the Senate Finance Committee after months of working with the chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and four other lawmakers to draft the legislation.

The two other Republicans in that Group of Six, Senators Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ultimately refused to support the bill and blamed Democrats for setting artificial timelines to get it done.

Ms. Snowe turned against the bill, however, when the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, combined it with a different version of the legislation passed in July by the Senate health committee. Mr. Reid included a government-run health insurance plan, or public option, that Ms. Snowe had opposed. The public option is expected to be stripped from the final Senate measure, however, because of opposition from centrist Democrats.

Ms. Snowe has said repeatedly that she thinks the health care bill is vitally important and would love to be able to vote for it. But she has also contended that Democrats are rushing the process unnecessarily and that as a result the bill will be rife with errors that could take years to fix.

In an interview with reporters at the Capitol on Thursday, Ms. Snowe described her conversations with Mr. Obama as productive.

“They are helpful,” she said. “We have a chance to share our views. So I get a better understanding of his vantage point, his perspective, where he’s coming from on these issues, and likewise he gets to hear my concerns and what I’m thinking at this moment in time. It helps to keep those lines of communications open. We have good free-flowing, straightforward, constructive, productive conversations.”

Ms. Snowe added: “He’s very informal. He’s welcoming and likes to hear what I have to say. He’s pretty organized in his thinking, and his passion for this issue. I think he’d prefer things to be less complex when it comes to the U.S. Senate.’’

Despite Mr. Obama’s informality, Ms. Snowe said that she always calls him Mr. President. And he calls her Olympia. “I would expect that,” she said. “I would hope he would.”

Democrats have been struggling to nail down the 60 votes needed to approve the health care legislation. And winning Ms. Snowe’s support would be a tremendous coup, though she has suggested that is unlikely if Democrats insist on adopting the bill before Christmas.

“We get into all of the issues,” Ms. Snowe said of her discussions with the president. “We had a very good conversation. He’s very familiar, very knowledgeable, very much aware of the circumstances, changing events.”

“Rush will not get his wish and Mr. Cheney was misinformed. I am still a Republican,” Powell said, noting that he “voted solidly for Republican candidates” for president for 20 years, spent 10 years of his life serving in Republican administrations and spoke at two GOP conventions.

“You know, neither (Cheney) nor Rush Limbaugh are members of the membership committee of the Republican Party. I get to make my decision on that,” Powell said. “And so I will continue to work in a way that I think is helpful to the country and helpful to the party.”

He said the reason he endorsed Barack Obama for president last fall — a decision that prompted a wave of conservative discontent with Powell — was he believed Obama was “best-qualified” to lead.

Oh BTW, how smart is Colin Powell? He claims to have voted for Lyndon Johnson AND Jimmy Carter. (Unless he confused Obama with the Peanut farmer).