President Barack Obama tallied a much-needed win Friday when a critical House committee approved legislation that would provide health care to millions of uninsured Americans.

But the bill’s turbulent passage widened longstanding rifts within his party, rifts that imperil his landmark push for vastly expanding health care coverage when Congress returns to session in the fall.

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The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, 31-28, on Friday as liberal and conservative Democrats on the panel reached a hard-fought accord with one another. Five Democrats voted against the measure, and no Republicans supported it.

The Friday night vote is a historic milestone and sets a positive tone for Democrats heading into the extended summer recess. And for a party still haunted by its last push for universal coverage 15 years ago, under then-President Bill Clinton, the vote also sets an auspicious precedent: Their last effort never cleared Energy and Commerce.

Clearing the committee hurdle means Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) now has a bill – or bills, since the Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committee approved different health care reform measures, which now must be reconciled. But she and other House leaders also must weather the shifting political winds of August, as members return to their districts, and they and the public have a month to mull over the bill. And House action means little in the Senate, where the Finance Committee punted its negotiations until Sept. 15.

The committee's measure doesn't include a single-payer, government-run health care system to provide coverage for all Americans, and Pelosi had to shore up support from her liberal flank by promising to schedule a vote on legislation to create such a system to placate liberal members angered by the compromise brokered by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

Even some of those Democrats who cheered the committee's passage of the bill sounded a cautionary note about the future chapters.

“It’s not over,” said Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross, a key negotiator for the Blue Dogs whose deal with Waxman broke the extended deadlock. “There are still five bills. This is a 10-step legislative process. I’m reserving judgment on the full package until we see what the bill looks like.”

The failed four-week sprint to send a bill to the White House before the August recess resulted in rancorous negotiations that dominated the headlines, making it harder for the president and his congressional allies to sell Americans on the need for reform.

And the Senate remains a high hurdle. The divide between liberal and conservative Democrats could prove even more perilous in the slow-moving Upper Chamber, where Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), an established moderate, is already stirring liberal discontent in his prolonged negotiations with a trio of Republicans on the committee.

Waxman attributed his committee's passage of the bill to “the leadership of President Obama.” But while health care reform is Obama’s top first-year legislative priority, other congressional Democrats have been growing increasingly frustrated with the White House for a perceived lack of hands-on involvement.

During a Friday briefing in the Capitol with top Obama advisers, a collection of House Democrats gave David Axelrod and Nancy Anne De Parle an earful about what they’d like to see the White House do better in the health care debate as this fight shifts to the fall, according to people present.

Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) asked the pair why the administration has focused much of its attention on the Senate, and Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren told the president’s advisers that “it’s time to govern,” asking them why Obama’s closest confidantes, like Valerie Jarrett, don’t spent more time on Capitol Hill.

Despite those complaints, the White House kept a close eye on the deliberations. Chief of staff Rahm Emanuel spent nearly 12 hours negotiating with Blue Dogs in the last two weeks. And White House aides patrolled the hallways outside the hearing room throughout the Energy and Commerce debate. On Friday, Phil Schiliro, Obama’s top legislative liaison – and a former top Waxman aide – also attended the debate.