OMB Director Peter Orszag is right, there are health care savings to be found in our current health care system. Several delivery system reforms included in PPACA have the potential to transform our health care system and save billions of dollars. Below are three crucial, cost-saving elements of health reform that must be fully appropriated:

1. Prevention: Seventy-five percent of health care spending is linked to treating chronic conditions, such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer. These chronic conditions are largely preventable and if caught early, the costly complications can be effectively managed and minimized. Preventive education and early intervention programs are critical to managing and preventing chronic disease and many effective, evidence-based programs are already in place across the country. Community based programs like the use of the Diabetes Prevention Program Protocols by YMCA and other organizations can reduce the incidence of diabetes by 58 percent and reduce health care spending within two years. If the federal government paid even a third of the cost of these interventions (about $100 per year) to enroll overweight, prediabetic adults, lifetime federal savings would total approximately $15 Billion.

In addition to lifestyle change, a new generation of weight loss medications (used in combination with diet, exercise and nutrition counseling) would also result in federal health care savings. For instance, a 15 percent reduction in weight for obese beneficiaries entering Medicare (well within the range of these new drugs and DPP interventions) would generate $60 billion in lifetime federal savings just for obese patients aged 60 to 64 today.

2. Obesity: Obesity is linked to one third of the increase in domestic health spending since the mid-1980s and is a key factor in the rise in private insurance premiums, Medicare and Medicaid spending. Research I completed last year for America’s Health Rankings found that by 2018, if obesity prevalence continues to increase at the current rate, obesity will account for more than 21 percent of health care spending. If obesity levels are held at their current rates, it is estimated that the U.S. could save $820 per adult by 2018 — a savings of almost $200 billion dollars in 2018 alone.

3. Care coordination and payment reform: In order to prevent chronic disease, as mentioned above, we must better coordinate our health care to eliminate unnecessary spending and ensure patients receive high quality care. Community health teams and accountable care organizations—two extremely effective care coordination models—are a vital link to refer patients to community-based prevention programs that can deliver effective primary care to avert disease, detect existing conditions and help avoid complications from one or more chronic conditions. Using these transitional care models, such as CHT, has the potential to save nearly $200 billion over 10 years for the Medicare program alone.

The numbers speak for themselves. These and other similar health reforms do have the potential to reduce our national deficit. Health reform is a "key step toward a healthier fiscal future."

Here is a picture of our spending, comparing the status quo to the now "reformed" system. Orszag thinks the PPACA reduces our "long term fiscal shortfall"? Is something very wrong here? Or does he just mean that raising taxes is the key to solving our problems instead of bending the cost curve - after all, PPACA increased taxes around $569 billion.

Recent news from Massachusetts should serve as a warning for the country as a whole. Costs are out of control; emergency room visits are higher than ever; and the legislature has put all efforts to reform the reform on hold. And remember, even the President said this was the model for the recently passed national reform.