CBO Director Increasingly Focusing On Health Care Issues

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 22 Apr 2008 - 5:00 PDT

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The Wall Street Journal on Monday examined how Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag "increasingly is focusing" on health care and is "playing ... referee" as the presidential candidates and Congress debate the issue. Orszag has "become a prominent speaker at health conferences" and has co-written two articles on health care in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal reports. In addition, since he became CBO director in 2007, Orszag has increased the number of staff members dedicated to health care from 31 to 47, and he seeks to add more.

Orszag "wants to drive home concerns" about the long-term financial sustainability of Medicare and Medicaid and has "emphasized that the biggest driver of rising medical costs is the increasing use of new technology," not the aging population, the Journal reports.

According to the Journal, although Orszag "steers clear of presidential politicals," CBO could play a "key role" in the efforts of the next president to reform the U.S. health care system. CBO also "may provide ammunition to one side or the other" in the general election "as it examines different potential approaches" to health care reform, the Journal reports (Wilde Mathews, Wall Street Journal, 4/21).

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