US senators closer to $1 trillion healthcare bill

U.S. senators on Thursday moved closer to agreement on a $1 trillion U.S. healthcare overhaul that would provide medical coverage to nearly everyone and could be paid for without adding to huge budget deficits.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and other panel members cautioned there was no final package yet but said bringing down the cost was a significant step toward reaching an agreement that could gain at least some Republican support.

Baucus said panel members have narrowed negotiations to a set of options that bring the price tag to about $1 trillion over 10 years, down from earlier estimates of $1.6 trillion.

"We have options that would enable us to write a $1 trillion bill, fully paid for," Baucus told reporters after a closed-door meeting with panel members.

"We're getting a lot closer to an agreement," Baucus said.

President Barack Obama has made a healthcare overhaul that reins in costs and covers most of the 47 million uninsured Americans one of his top legislative priorities. He has turned up the pressure on Congress to pass healthcare reform this year and has indicated a willingness to compromise.

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad said lawmakers would pick through the menu of options to develop a final package that can earn enough votes to pass the committee and the Senate.

"Very substantial progress has been made over the last 24 hours," Conrad told reporters.

'FULL COVERAGE'

"We now have options that will get us to $1 trillion, paid for, and do it in a way in which you still have full coverage," he said.

Lawmakers are looking at taxing some employer-sponsored healthcare benefits to help pay for the package, a measure Obama opposed during his presidential election campaign.

Finance Committee aides said their plan as currently envisioned would provide for health insurance coverage for 97 percent of the U.S. population.

In order to bring the package within the $1 trillion price tag, senators said they had to scale back proposed subsidies to help individuals and businesses obtain insurance but they declined to go into details.

Earlier, the panel had been looking at providing tax subsidies to individuals with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level. Now they are looking at scaling that back to 300 percent or lower.

The Finance Committee proposal is one of two healthcare plans in the Senate, which hopes to pass a healthcare bill before the August recess. Three committees in the House of Representatives are developing a healthcare proposal.

The Finance Committee plan is seen as the best chance to negotiate a bipartisan package, which Obama and Senate Democratic leaders said they want.

The panel's effort comes amid signs of strain in the diverse coalition pushing for an overhaul of a U.S. healthcare system that chews up 16 percent of the gross domestic product annually but trails many developed countries on measures like infant mortality and longevity.

Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, a major player in the negotiations, said it was too early to say how many Republicans would back the overhaul.

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, also a key negotiator, has strongly opposed Democratic demands that a new government plan be created to compete with private insurance companies to cover the uninsured.

Insurers and doctors share Republican concerns that a new public insurance plan would drive insurance companies out of business.

"I'm certainly keeping an open mind but I am not very enthusiastic about anything that smacks of a government plan," Hatch told reporters.