CHEYENNE - U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said the Senate Finance Committee is making a lot of progress but remains far from close to a compromise on health care reform.

Enzi is one of six committee members - three Republicans and three Democrats - who've been trying to hash out a compromise on a health care bill.

No deal is at hand, Enzi said Wednesday.

"It's easy to agree on principle," he said in a phone interview. "Heck, I've been getting everybody on both sides of the aisle to agree on principles. When you start getting into the details and the pay-for-it, you start getting something completely different."

Growing deficits are one good reason why lawmakers need to take care that health care reform doesn't add to the national debt, he said.

Enzi also is looking for assurances that the bill won't increase Americans' health care costs - and that any hard-won compromises by the Finance Committee will be retained in future versions of the legislation.

But Enzi said he opposes a government-run option for health insurance, something many Democrats favor.

Health care reform easily could be split into 10 bills that still would take up 500 pages each, he said.

"This one we're trying to hammer into a few weeks' worth of time," Enzi said. "It's not doing it justice."

No vote on health care is expected in the Senate until at least September.

"If we rush into it, we have a good chance of getting it wrong. If we take the right amount of time, the American people will like what we're doing," he said.