Obama requests details on health care savings

June 25, 2009

President Barack Obama has instructed the health care industry to provide specific details on its pledge to slow rising costs and help to save the nation $2 trillion over 10 years.

Crunching Medicare statistics, researchers concluded that as much as 30 cents of each U.S. health care dollar might be paying for tests and procedures that are of little or no value to patients.

Insurers, doctors, hospitals, drug makers, medical device manufacturers and a leading health care union took the savings pledge at the White House in May.

They said they were ready to do their part to slow projected increases in costs by an average of 1.5 percentage points per year for 10 years.

Insurers are working on how to reduce the administrative costs of filing claims. Instead of having a different claims system for every insurer, a more efficient system might allow physicians to use a single Internet portal to handle transactions with all insurers.

Physicians are working on how to avoid situations where different physicians prescribe contraindicated medications.

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