OMB's Orszag on Health Care:"change financial incentives towards better care rather than more care"

[omega minimo]

http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/congressional_budget_office_director_peter_orszag_090611/
http://www.pbs.org/nbr/info/video.html

Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag Outlines the President's Health Care Plan
Thursday, June 11, 2009

DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: A doctor we spoke with asked this question. He said you want me to treat more patients. You want me to give them more services. And yet we're going to lower costs. How is that going to work? So how is that going to work under health-care reform?

ORSZAG: Let's talk about that doctor. Right now often the doctor is not aware of whether he or she is treating people differently than other doctors, often doesn't have specific enough information to help you assess the probability or the likelihood that this treatment or that treatment course would be more beneficial and unfortunately, also faces distorted financial incentives. So if he or she provides higher quality, less intense care to you, financially penalized as a result. That makes no sense. We need to fix all of that.

ORSZAG: I think what you need to do is build out the health information technology backbone of the country. We already have a significant investment in the recovery act to do that. A lot more patient- centered health research so that the doctor and you can have a more evidence-based discussion about the right way forward. And then we need to change financial incentives towards better care rather than more care.

GERSH: What does that mean for companies that are spending billions of dollars, millions of dollars on expensive new treatments? Does that mean the government is going to say we don't think that treatment is worth it or you are not going to get the return on that expense that you wanted?

ORSZAG: No, what it means is you need to pay attention to the treatments that are going to not only cost more but actually do better. So we have now a whole series including one that was in the newspapers this week, expensive new drugs or treatments that don't work any better than the things they are replacing and frankly sometimes pose unanticipated risks. Those are being developed in a situation where more and more expensive is what is rewarded. We need to move towards a system in which better is rewarded.

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GERSH: But can we afford this at a time when the Chinese and other people who invest in our country are starting to think maybe the United States is not the best place to put our money.

ORSZAG: We have a moral imperative to reduce the ranks of the uninsured. We have to do that in a way -- that is where that trillion or trillion and a half dollars in costs is coming from. We have to do that in a fiscally responsible way. It has to be offset fully to savings in Medicare or Medicaid or additional revenue and as a result be deficit neutral.

[omega minimo]

1. Hi folks, this was an interesting discussion, worth checking out and kicking.

:kick:

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2. .