President Obama Discusses Need For Overhauling U.S. Health Care System At 'Fiscal Responsibility Summit'

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Public Health;  Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 25 Feb 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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President Obama on Monday at the White House hosted a "fiscal responsibility summit" during which he addressed health care and other issues, CongressDaily reports (Condon, CongressDaily, 2/24). According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the "summit served several purposes: to establish Obama's credibility as a Democrat who cares about budget deficits despite the stimulus, to court allies in both parties who are pivotal to his aims and to throw down the gauntlet on health care reform."

During the summit, Obama and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said that efforts to limit Medicare spending will require broader health care reform. Orszag said, "Let me be very clear: Health care reform is entitlement reform," adding, "The path of fiscal responsibility must run directly through health care" (Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle, 2/24). He cited efforts to limit health care costs as the "single most important thing we can do" for long-term fiscal stability (Condon, CongressDaily, 2/23).

Obama said, "Putting America on a sustainable fiscal course will require addressing health care," adding, "Many of you said what I believe, that the biggest source of our deficits is the rising cost of health care" (Kranish/Wangsness, Boston Globe, 2/24). In addition, Obama said that he seeks to "educat(e) the public" on the "tradeoffs involved in health care" reform (Young, The Hill, 2/23).

Obama also announced plans to hold an additional summit on health care in the middle of next week (Thomma, McClatchy/Miami Herald, 2/23). The summit on health care will focus on proposals to expand health insurance to more U.S. residents and reduce health care costs (Boston Globe, 2/24). According to The Hill, "by scheduling a White House summit on health reform in early March, Obama is sending a clear message to Congress and the public that he is not setting aside his ambitious health care agenda" (The Hill, 2/23).

Budget Proposal
During the fiscal responsibility summit, Obama also discussed the outline of his fiscal year 2010 budget proposal, which he will release on Thursday. He said that the proposal will target Medicare spending. Obama said that efforts to reduce the federal budget deficit and the nearly $11-trillion national debt will require efforts to limit health care costs in public programs and the private sector (Wolf, USA Today, 2/24). According to the Washington Post, the White House "offered no timetable for those goals and few explicit ideas for how to achieve them, disappointing some lawmakers and other participants, who had hoped the summit might produce greater momentum to fix the chronic imbalance between government spending and tax collections that is driving the national debt to dangerous levels" (Montgomery/Goldstein, Washington Post, 2/24).

Obama in recent days also indicated that he "has no plans to back away from campaign promises to revamp the nation's health care system and create new sources of clean energy, both of which cost money, at least in the short term," Roll Call reports (Koffler, Roll Call, 2/24). According to the AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, his "challenge is clear: He will have to increase spending on health care and energy if he wants to accomplish the policy overhaul he promised during his campaign, yet he also needs to cut spending elsewhere and increase revenue to meet his deficit goal" (Kuhnhenn, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/24). The Obama administration and congressional Democrats "are putting out a new line ... that plans to revamp the health care system are the key to cost savings that will help reduce spending on Medicare," according to Roll Call (Roll Call, 2/24).

According to a Post/ABC News poll released Tuesday, few U.S. adults believe that Medicare and Social Security will provide them with benefits through retirement. The telephone poll, conducted from Feb. 19 to Feb. 22, includes responses from a random sample of 1,001 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Eight percent of adults are very confident that Medicare will provide them with benefits through retirement, the poll found. Among adults ages 65 and older, 67% believe that Medicare will provide them with benefits through retirement, according to the poll (Fletcher/Cohen, Washington Post, 2/24).

Complete results of the poll are available online.

Speech
On Tuesday night, Obama will address a joint session of Congress, during which he likely will "launch arguably the most ambitious component of his domestic agenda: providing medical insurance to all U.S. residents," CQ Today reports (Bettelheim, CQ Today, 2/23). According to the Washington Times, Obama plans to "use a significant portion" of his speech "to highlight his plans for health care reform" and "tell Congress and the nation that overhauling the country's health system is the country's next significant priority" (Lengell, Washington Times, 2/24).

"Experts say that by designating health care as a priority now, Obama is trying to take advantage of a narrow window of opportunity when the public and many interest groups favor change and the economic crisis is making health coverage an imperative," CQ Today reports (Bettelheim, CQ Today, 2/23).

Omnibus Appropriations Bill
In related news, congressional Democrats on Monday introduced an omnibus appropriations bill (HR 1105) that includes the FY 2009 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill and the eight other unapproved FY 2009 appropriations bills. Since last October, the federal government has operated under a continuing resolution that will fund most Cabinet departments and federal agencies at FY 2008 levels until March 6. The omnibus appropriations bill would fund those departments and agencies from March 7 until Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year (Wayne, CQ Today, 2/23). The bill represents an 8%, or $30 billion, increase over comparable budgets for those departments and agencies in FY 2008 (Sands/Bellantoni, Washington Times, 2/24).

The House plans to vote on the bill this week (Kelley, USA Today, 2/24). The Senate likely will vote on the bill next week (Bendavid, Wall Street Journal, 2/24).

The bill would provide $625.6 billion in Labor-HHS-Education appropriations, which includes about $152 billion in discretionary spending, an almost $6 billion increase from FY 2008. Under the bill, the HHS budget would increase by about 4% from FY 2008. The bill would increase the NIH budget by $932 million from FY 2008. In addition, the bill would increase funds for a program to train health care workers by 12% from FY 2008 to $393 million (Wayne, CQ Today, 2/23). The bill also includes $6.6 billion for CDC (Wall Street Journal, 2/24).

The bill would provide $20.5 billion in discretionary spending for Agriculture appropriations. The bill includes $2 billion for FDA and $14.5 million to establish a nationwide animal tracking system designed to prevent disease outbreaks and improve food safety (Sternstein, CQ Today, 2/23).

Broadcast Coverage
American Public Media's "Marketplace" on Monday reported on the fiscal responsibility summit. The segment includes comments from Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, and Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future (Radbill, "Marketplace," American Public Media, 2/23).

NPR's "All Things Considered" on Monday also reported on the summit (Gonyea, "All Things Considered," NPR, 2/23).

NPR's "All Things Considered" on Monday reported on the Obama speech (Horsley, "All Things Considered," NPR, 2/23).

NPR's "Morning Edition" on Tuesday also reported on the speech (Gonyea, "Morning Edition," NPR, 2/24). Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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