Industry sources have told the Washington Post that 3 influential hospital associations have agreed to contribute $155 billion over the next decade toward paying for the costs of insuring the 47 million Americans that don’t currently have coverage.

The deal reached between the American Hospital Association, the Federation of American Hospitals and the Catholic Health Association and both White House officials and Senate Finance Committee leaders follows a similar deal in which Big Pharma coughed up  $80 billion toward the same end.

“Getting health-care reform is absolutely critical,” said a hospital association negotiator. “This is our attempt to act in good faith.”

About 60% of the savings would result from cuts to previously expected Medicare and Medicaid payments. Most of the rest would be achieved by reducing hospital payments earmarked for care of the uninsured.

The reductions would kick-in after most uninsured folks acquire coverage, a significant risk-mitigator for hospitals.

A source privy to the negotiations indicated the parties reached a deal after government officials pitched “shared responsibility” and assured providers that that all parts of the system would be asked to sacrifice.

In achieving the final figure, the Big O played hardball, just as he did with Big Pharma 2 weeks earlier. In that case, Obama floated a request that drug makers fork over $100 billion towards the greater good. After losing its lunch, Big Pharma countered with $80 billion and the deal was done.

In this case, the Coronated One announced in his weekly radio/Internet chat that his team had found ways to save $200 billion in hospital costs over a 10 year period.

“There was no way we could tolerate $200 billion,” an industry executive told the Post.

As many as 30 congressmen involved in drafting health reform legislation hold health care stocks worth at least $11 million. The true value of these holdings could approach $27 million, since the congressional disclosure forms released last week don’t require reporting on precise values of asset holdings.

At least 8 Senators on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hold health care stocks worth a minimum of $600,000 and possibly as much as $1.9 million.

This group is currently deliberating on the Big O’s pet project, a “public option” that would compete against Big Insurance.

Similarly, at least 6 Senators on the Finance Committee hold stakes in health-care companies, including John Kerry, who with his wife holds at least $5.2 million in Merck, Lilly and other playahs.

In the House, where the Energy and Commerce Committee is drafting critical health reform legislation, the family of Jane Harman, a senior member, has stashed $3.2 million in a portfolio of 20 health care companies.

Congressional rules do not prevent members from holding stock in the industries they regulate, but ethicists raise concern that such behavior creates possible conflicts, especially if the legislation could be perceived as positively impacting their portfolios.

“If someone is going to be substantially enriched by the consequences of the vote…then there is a problem,” Harlan Krumholz, a Yale professor, told the Washington Post. “You don’t want to be tainted by any conflict.”

Yea, but Robert Walker, a former House and Senate ethics counsel, points  out that the Congressmen are “simply one of perhaps thousands or more” investors in a particular corporation. Such investments, he claims, do not constitute “prohibitive conflicts.”

And in many cases, the congressmen’s holdings are but a sliver of their total assets. Harman, whose husband started the global electronics company Harman International, is reported to be worth $120 million, for example.