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RCP: Two weekends ago, the previous HSS Secretary, Michael Leavitt, addressed the National Governors Association in Washington. He said that the most important lesson he learned during his tenure was that the key to health care reform is reforming Medicare and that you cannot reform health care without dramatically improving the delivery of Medicare. He said that although Medicare only accounts for 15% of health care spending, “it is the only player that permeates ever piece of the health care community.”

Is Leavitt correct? If we can’t reform Medicare, will the rest of the system be impossible to change?

Senator Wyden: It’s striking that Jack Wennberg, who has been one of the leaders in terms of blowing the whistle on these regional disparities with Medicare dollars also points to the kind focus we have on the private sector beginning to migrate to other systems. He says, as counterintuitive as it is, that he thinks that making some changes in the private sector can eventually start migrating to other parts of the system. It’s interesting because it’s counter-intuitive. Normally, you say everything happens in Medicare and then it will start migrating to the private sector.

Full Transcript of the RCP-Wyden Interview