But after weeks of amiable optimism, Republicans who emerged from a two-hour meeting of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday volunteered sharp-edged political comments.  Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said Republicans were being pressed by Democrats to support tax increases to pay for a bill they had not seen, with an unknown price tag.  “I’d like to see a bill,” Mr. Roberts said. “All I’ve seen is slide shows. After every show, I send the information to our health care providers. Then, after cardiac arrest, they come back and say, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, how is this going to affect doctors, hospitals, home health care, clinical laboratories, pharmacists, ambulance drivers?’ ”  The Democratic bill is likely to include a requirement for people to carry health insurance, subsidies for those who cannot afford it, and a requirement for employers to contribute to the cost.  Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, said he feared that Democrats, with a solid majority in the Senate and strong support from President Obama, would ignore Republican concerns about a big expansion in the role of government.  Mr. Hatch predicted that such an approach would meet the same fate as President Bill Clinton’s plan for universal coverage.  “If the Democrats go ahead with a purely partisan bill,” Mr. Hatch said, “you saw what happened on Hillarycare, and this will be just as bad.”  Mr. Grassley said many Republicans agreed that Americans should be required to have “insurance of some kind or another.” But he said he and other Republican senators did not believe the government should require employers to provide or pay for coverage of their employees.  Creation of a new government insurance plan remains the most contentious issue in the debate.  “A bill that passes the Senate will have some version of a public option,” Mr. Baucus predicted on Thursday. “If there is a public plan, we have to make sure it does not set prices, there really is competition and the government’s thumb is very, very light.”  Mr. Grassley said, “If there is a solution here, it’s got to be one that does not have the government setting prices or unfair competition.” But he also said: “Our caucus is very, very much against a public option. It’s kind of a litmus test.”  In a letter to senators on Wednesday, Mr. Obama came down strongly in favor of “a public health insurance option operating alongside private plans.” Mr. Grassley said Mr. Obama’s letter “was not helpful.”  Mr. Baucus and Mr. Grassley agreed that Congress was likely, in the end, to limit the decades-old tax break for employer-provided health insurance. Revenues raised from this change could help finance coverage of the uninsured, proponents say.  But much more money would be needed.  “When you look at what the Democrats want to do, the costs are astronomical,” Mr. Hatch said.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A15 of the New York edition with the headline: Republicans Complain About Plan For Insurance. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Despite the Republicans’ concerns, Democratic leaders expressed confidence that they could come together on a bill producing near-universal coverage.