Senate Finance Committee hears testimony on health IT, quality of care, medical liability laws in preparation for major health system overhaul efforts next year

Lawmakers should not overstate the ability of health care information technology, quality improvement efforts and medical liability reform to reduce health care costs, Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, testified on Tuesday at a Senate Finance Committee hearing, CQ HealthBeat reports.

During the hearing, Ginsburg said that such proposals "have merit because they have the potential to improve the quality of care" but added that "it's questionable whether the ... impact on costs will be commensurate with the magnitude of the cost problem."

Elizabeth McGlynn, associate director of RAND Health, said that lawmakers should address the issue of health care quality, which she said varies nationwide, separate from the issue of costs. Felicia Fields, group vice president of Human Resource and Corporate Services for Ford Motor, said that lawmakers should seek to address the main causes of increased health care costs and that such an effort would help make health insurance more affordable. "Simply subsidizing excessive health care spending does not offer a long-term solution to our health care problems," and "it may exacerbate them," she said.

The hearing marked the second in a series that the committee plans to hold in preparation for a debate on health care reform legislation next year. Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said, "I hope and intend that we can seize the opportunity to achieve what previous Congresses and presidents were unable to do," adding, "We must find a way for all Americans to have access to affordable, high-quality health care" (Carey, CQ HealthBeat, 6/3).