Anti-abortion Democrats renewed their threat to sink an overhaul of the nation's health care system Saturday, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided not to give them a separate vote that would have implemented a strict ban on federal funds subsidizing abortion.

House leaders chose not to give Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) a vote on making the anti-abortion fix to the bill and will instead try to muster the 216 votes needed to send a health care overhaul to the president without his help, a Democratic aide confirmed.

Pelosi said Saturday that she plans to allow no changes outside of a possible leadership-written manager's amendment.

Hounded by reporters as she rushed from the House chamber to a private meeting in a nearby office, Pelosi could be heard to say: "An executive order is a different thing. That might be a possibility."

While Stupak's spokeswoman told POLITICO that "discussions are continuing," the talks between anti-abortion Democrats and Pelosi "have collapsed," according to another Michigan Democrat, Rep. Dale Kildee, an abortion foe who plans to vote for the bill.

Stupak, the leader of a small band of Democratic anti-abortion holdouts, scuttled a highly anticipated press conference Saturday morning in which he was expected to lay out his demands for airtight language banning federal subsidies for the purchase of insurance plans that cover abortion in exchange for the group's support of the bill.

Democratic lawmakers and aides say they will get the votes they need even if they don't win the support of Stupak and some of his allies, but reaching 216 is significantly more difficult -- and at least potentially, impossible -- without them.

Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.), though, said Stupak's group is holding firm.

He said that to support the legislation he needs an ironclad guarantee that Stupak's language will be resurrected and enforced -- whether the vehicle is legislation or executive action.

"There's still time and they still need votes," he said.