Consensus may be emerging at summit on how legislation could curb spiraling health care costs

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Health care cost-containment ideas mesh at summit

WASHINGTON — A consensus on how to rein in spiraling health care costs seems to be emerging at President Barack Obama’s health care summit.

Obama agreed with assertions by Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn that such waste and abuse now account for up to a third of the cost of entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid and is a major barrier to more widespread insurance coverage.

Coburn said cost is the chief reason millions of people don’t have health insurance. House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said he believed Coburn had a point. But he also said the proposals advanced by his fellow Democrats would accomplish just the kind of cost-containment the GOP says it supports.