They declined to outline the specifics of the agreement, but said that the measures they had been discussing will be sent to the Congressional Budget Office for cost estimates. Once the estimates are returned, the final deal will be put together.
"We have made a lot of progress. There's a lot of agreement. We have decided to take the next step and that is to ask the CBO to score what we've been discussing," said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), one of five conservative Democrats negotiating with five liberals.
The discussion has focused on abandoning or greatly narrowing the public health insurance option. In exchange, people 55-64 would be able to buy in to Medicare and Medicaid eligibility would be expanded to people within 150 percent of the federal poverty line.
And people within 300 percent of poverty would be eligible for a program pushed by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) modeled on her state's Basic Health. Cantwell is not one of the ten in the meetings but stopped by to brief negotiators.
Senators, after the meeting, would not confirm which elements of the discussion were sent to CBO. Much will depend on the results of the CBO analysis.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), one of the liberal members in negotiations, said that he was happy with where the talks had gone.
