Ideas for Financing Health Reform: Revenue Measures that Also Reduce Health Spending (Testimony at the Senate Finance Committee Roundtable on Financing Comprehensive Health Care Reform.)

Statement for the Senate Committee on Finance
Submitted by: John Sheils, Vice President, The Lewin Group
May 12, 2009

Health reform can be funded with new revenues and savings to existing federal programs. In this analysis we examine two tax-based options that would both raise revenues and reduce health spending. These include placing limits on the tax exclusion for employer health benefits and a large increase in the tax on tobacco products. We also discuss potential savings to existing federal safety-net programs under expansions in coverage that could be redirected to help pay for health reform.

We estimate that these three proposals would raise about $1.25 trillion in revenues and savings to federal programs over the 2010 through 2019 period. This is roughly equal the amount of funding required to pay for the health reform program proposed by President Obama in the 2008 campaign ($1.17 trillion). These provisions would also reduce national health spending by about $461.0 billion over this period.