The Senate bill, approved Thursday morning, allows any state to bar the use of federal subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion and requires insurers in other states to divide subsidy money into separate accounts so that only dollars from private premiums would be used to pay for abortions. Just days before the bill passed, the Catholic Health Association, which represents hundreds of Catholic hospitals across the country, said in a statement that it was encouraged and increasingly confident that such a compromise can achieve the objective of no federal funding for abortion. An umbrella group for nuns followed its lead. The same day, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops called the proposed compromise morally unacceptable. The divide frames one of the most contentious issues facing House and Senate negotiators as they try to produce a bill that can pass in both chambers. For months, the bishops have driven a lobbying campaign to bar anyone who receives insurance subsidies under the proposed overhaul from using them to buy coverage that included abortion. Citing the bishops, a group of House Democrats forced their liberal party leaders to adopt such a provision and threatened to block any final legislation that fell short of it. Abortion rights supporters, in response, have vowed to block any bill that includes such a measure. Officials of the Catholic hospitals group and the nuns Leadership Conference of Women Religious declined to comment. Catholic scholars say their statement reflects a different application of church teachings against cooperation with evil, a calculus that the legislation offers a way to extend health insurance to millions of Americans. For the Catholic hospitals, that it is both a moral and financial imperative, since like other hospitals they stand to gain from reducing the number of uninsured patients.