Some Details Emerging in Senate Health Reform Talks

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: The closed-door health care slog at the Senate Finance Committee continued today, without resolution.

But it does appear that negotiators have begun to tackle the treacherous issue of how to pay for health reform.

Both Sens. Olympia Snowe and Max Baucus talked on-camera to reporters after today's talks. They meet again tomorrow afternoon.

Baucus said he has been speaking to President Obama almost daily about the talks.

There is no deal yet on any issue, and all negotiators are careful to qualify that “we don’t agree on anything until we agree on everything.” But some themes of what a compromise could look like are starting to emerge.

And these are often riffs on controversial ideas. Instead of an employer mandate, there is talk of fees levied on "free rider" employers. The result would be similar – employers of people who can’t afford insurance on their own would either have to offer insurance or pay the government to offer it for them.

"Its not a broad based employer mandate," argued Snowe. She said the idea is to "encourage employers to continue their coverage."

Negotiators seem to be rejecting a so-called mandate for employers to provide insurance for employees, but there is apparent agreement that employers who drop coverage for employees should have to cover the cost of any government subsidy their employees would qualify for under reform.

This is modeled as a way to keep employers in the benefits game and discourage so-called "free rider" employers who would try to drop their benefits plans to save money.

Another contentious issue for Democrats is that of paying for health reform in part by taxing workers' high cost “Cadillac” health benefits plans. Many such plans are offered by unions, who have accepted better benefits in exchange for lower wages. The idea of taxing high-cost plans is painful for many Democrats.

Instead, there is talk of not taxing the people who receive the plans, but instead taxing insurance companies that offer them.

The idea here is to tax the companies instead of the recipients. Snowe suggested today that companies offering benefits worth more than $25,000 or more – a small minority of health insurance plans - would be taxed.