Where's the Savings?

When Candidate Obama hit the campaign trail, he promised to reform the nation's healthcare system. One of his promises was to cut through the costs.

President Obama is trying to deliver on those campaign promises -- sort of. He is trying to bring change to our healthcare system. But if you've been following all the reports on his efforts, you know his proposals are adding to the bill -- not reducing it.

For starters, the president and the Democrat-controlled Congress devoted $1.1 billion for comparative-effectiveness research -- basically comparing one treatment against another to see which works best for the least amount of money for the most people. However, several Democratic leaders, including Sen. Max Baucus, are stipulating that this research cannot be used to cut healthcare costs. Hunh?

Meanwhile, the president is touting a $2 trillion savings in healthcare costs over 10 years -- based on a conversation he had with industry. He uses that savings to balance the $1 trillion he's planning on spending on healthcare coverage and other "reforms." Since that meeting, the healthcare industry has outlined some vague steps that might save some money but nowhere near $2 trillion.

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a document acknowledging that many of the industry proposals will not affect government healthcare spending and the ones that do will fall far short of the president's promise. Responding to the CBO report, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says in a statement, “As predicted, the $2 trillion savings pledge didn’t materialize from CBO’s perspective. The headlines generated by the White House event a month ago don’t get us much closer to affording health care reform today.”