WSJ CEO COUNCIL: Budget Chief Sees Deficit Cuts Down The Line
By Jon Kamp, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said Tuesday
that the deficit needs to be reduced in the "medium term" to a more sustainable
level, but that the near term presents challenges.
"We have over the next couple years a difficult line to walk," Orszag said,
addressing executives at The Wall Street Journal CEO Council. But in the time
frame of 2015 to 2017, the goal is to reduce a deficit that was 10% of GDP last
year to a 3% level, he said.
This goal comes amid a backdrop of big items on President Barack Obama's
agenda, most notably health-care changes. Administration officials faced some
skepticism at the conference on Monday and Tuesday about the ability to hold
back costs while expanding coverage, but Orszag defended that notion.
He pointed to a letter to Obama sent Tuesday by what Orszag called a "
bipartisan group of experts" that pointed to four key elements needed in making
changes, all of which they said are in the Senate Finance Committee's overhaul
language. The House of Representatives has passed an overhaul bill, and the
Senate is working on its version.
Orszag stressed the same points, which include making sure reform is deficit
neutral in the first decade and then lower thereafter under Congressional Budget
Office scoring; incentives for more efficient private plans; a commission of
experts to fuel continuous improvements in Medicare; and a delivery system that
rewards doctors for good care and not just more care.
"With those four pillars, I think we will be on the road to a higher-quality,
lower-cost health-care system," Orszag said.
The second item--incentives for more efficient plans--comes in the form of an
excise tax on high-cost, or "Cadillac," health plans.
"I think the excise tax actually reduces average premiums because it creates a
strong incentive for more efficiency in private plans," Orszag said.
-By Jon Kamp, Dow Jones Newswires; 617-654-6728; jon.kamp@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
11-17-091858ET
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