Fiscally Responsible Organizations Issue Statement on Health Care Reform

A group of budget experts including CRFB president, Maya MacGuineas, released a “Statement on Health Care Reform,” calling for further efforts to reduce health care costs as part of reform. The group, which includes members from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, American Enterprise Institute, Progressive Policy Institute, Heritage Foundation, Brookings Institution, Concord Coalition, and the Urban Institute, lists further actions that could be taken to help contain costs, including:

  • More thorough reform of the open-ended tax treatment of employer-sponsored health plans;
  • A stronger Medicare Commission that delivers both structural reform and immediate savings;
  • Powerful incentives to promote more efficient and cost-effective practices;
  • A federal health care budget to serve as an action-forcing mechanism for moving toward serious, structural reforms of the nation’s entitlement programs; and
  • Medical malpractice reform.