National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Report

This year, President Obama created the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to address our nation’s fiscal challenges in the wake of our national recession. The Commission was asked to identifying policies “to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run.”

Specifically, the Commission was asked to “propose recommendations designed to balance the budget, excluding interest payments on the debt, by 2015.” The Commission was also asked to “propose recommendations that meaningfully improve the long-run fiscal outlook, including changes to address the growth of entitlement spending and the gap between the projected revenues and expenditures of the Federal Government.”

The Commission released its report this week, which included some healthcare provisions. The full commission will vote on the report today. The report stated that federal spending on healthcare is “our single largest fiscal challenge over the long run,” and recommendations included the repeal of a long-term care insurance program that was part of the health care overhaul.

Needless to say, the report has drawn mixed reviews from commission members and much criticism from patient and provider groups. Disappointingly, the report did not address health IT and the positive aspects that utilizing IT might have to improve the cost of healthcare in our nation.

What did you think of the report?