December 12, 2007 3:36PM 

# CBO’s Orszag on Waste in Medicine 

By [Michael F. Cannon](https://www.cato.org/people/michael-f-cannon) 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

In today’s *Wall Street Journal*, Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag [writes](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119742918489122827.html) \[$\]:

> Some academic research suggests that national costs for health care can be reduced by perhaps 30% without harming quality.

In the September 2007 [issue](http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/september-2007/) of *Cato Unbound*, Robin Hanson sees Orszag’s 30 percent and raises him another 20 percent.

##### Related Tags 

[General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).