US President Barack Obama on Saturday proposed cutting the cost of government-run health programmes by more than 300 billion dollars over the next decade, arguing that hospitals can become more efficient. The latest savings offer - totaling $313 billion - comes as a long-running debate was ramped up in Congress this week over how to reform the country's health care system, which is the costliest in the world, according to a report of German News Agency "DPA". Obama, who wants a health reform bill approved by the end of this year, has said that surging US health costs pose the biggest threat to the long-term solvency of the United States. The new proposals would essentially scale back subsidies to hospitals, private insurers and pharmaceutical companies that manage Medicare and Medicaid - the government's long-running insurance programmes for the elderly and the poor. The government last month warned that Medicare will be insolvent by 2017. The new savings, combined with other measures announced in Obama's 2010 budget earlier this year, would extend that date to 2024. In his weekly radio address, Obama argued the government was overpaying private insurers for Medicare and that more savings could be found by "rooting out waste in Medicare and Medicaid."
