President Obama told the nation that Monday was “an historic day, a watershed event in the long and elusive quest for health care reform” after meeting with leaders of health groups who pledged to support cost savings of 1.5 percentage points over the next 10 years. The savings of $2 trillion, which will be generated from administrative simplification, alignment of incentives, use of evidence-based practices, improved delivery models, IT support, and regulatory reform, is all the more “remarkable,” said Obama, because the cuts were proposed by some groups that have historically opposed federal healthcare reform proposals. The effort on the part of the healthcare industry recognizes that “reform is not a luxury that can be postponed, but a necessity that cannot wait,” Obama said.
While the measures to be enacted by the health groups--which include hospitals, physicians, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, and a union--are significant, said Obama, “the only way these steps will have an enduring impact is if they are taken not in isolation, but as part of a broader effort to reform our entire health care system. What they're doing is complementary to and is going to be completely compatible with a strong, aggressive effort to move healthcare reform through here in Washington with an ultimate result of saving healthcare costs for families, businesses and the government.”
Consumer groups expressed concern that cost-cutting by the healthcare industry would amount to medical rationing, but Paul Ginsberg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, told CNNMoney that not reducing “wasteful expenditures” would more readily lead to rationing. “Although I am troubled by the vagueness of the efforts, it is still very positive that these groups that are most affected are recognizing the importance of efforts to contain [healthcare] costs," Ginsberg said.
The National Coalition on Health Care said that although it was “heartened” by the healthcare groups’ proposed solutions to runaway health costs, it said it was “very cautious about the particulars,” since most of the measures “should not be counted on to produce substantial savings soon.” The group called for legislation to “incorporate short-term constraints to slow the rate of increase in reimbursements of health care providers, sooner rather than later.”
