Democrats hunting for votes for U.S. healthcare deal

* Democrats hunt for votes on healthcare reform

* Critics question value of hospital deal (For a take a look on healthcare, click on [ID:nN07323916])

By Donna Smith and David Alexander

WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) - Congressional Democrats hunted for votes for a mammoth healthcare overhaul on Wednesday as critics attacked the Obama administration's new cost-savings deal with hospitals as a sham.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid met with key Republicans on the issue while supporters of healthcare reform searched for ways to bring down the plan's price tag of at least $1 trillion and pay for it without raising taxes on the middle class and poor.

Senator Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said afterward the effort to hatch a healthcare bill would remain bipartisan but the target of passing a bill before the monthlong August recess might slip.

"Bipartisan talks are going to continue, and not continue under a very hard timeline," Grassley said.

Vice President Joe Biden announced the agreement with hospitals to save $155 billion in healthcare spending over 10 years, mainly by lowering charges for health services to the poor and elderly.

But Republicans questioned whether the deal, and a similar $80 billion agreement with drugmakers announced last month, would ultimately provide real cost savings.

Some Democrats also wondered how binding the deals would be and what industries might expect in return.

"The administration and congressional Democrats are literally bullying health care groups into cutting backroom deals to fund a government takeover of health care," said House Republican leader John Boehner.

"That will increase costs and force millions of Americans out of the health care that they currently have. The American people deserve better," he said.

DIFFERENT PACKAGES

President Barack Obama has made reform of the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry his top legislative priority, and asked Congress to develop plans to reduce healthcare costs and cover most of the 46 million Americans without health insurance.

But lawmakers have struggled to come up with healthcare packages in the Senate and the House of Representatives, as five committees in the two chambers work on bills they would like to pass before the monthlong August recess.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the draft proposal by the House Ways and Means Committee would have $500 billion in Medicare savings over 10 years, a figure that would slightly reduce the amount of revenue the panel would have to raise to pay for the plan.