Senate Finance Committee leaders have reached a deal to delay for six months a 10 percent cut to Medicare physician pay rates and extend funding for children’s health insurance, a Republican committee aide said Monday.

The legislation, being written now, would stop the Medicare cuts set to take effect Jan. 1, the aide said. Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and ranking Republican Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, agree on the package with a few outstanding details to be resolved, according to the aide.

The Senate would take up the package as a standalone bill. “The idea is for the Senate to hotline it and then send to the House,” the Republican aide said.

The package also is expected to include a funding extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, but it’s uncertain for how long. There appeared to be agreement earlier on an extension until 2009, but the Republican aide cautioned that the situation was “fluid.”

House Democrats have been pushing to extend SCHIP funding until September 2008, in order to force another debate on what they see as a winning political issue. A extension until 2009 would certainly make the legislation more palatable to Republicans, however.

It was unclear if Senate leadership from either party had signed off on the agreement, but a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., disputed that any agreement had been finalized. Another aide close to the talks would not elaborate on the package’s details, but described the legislation as “not finished but nearing completion.”