The UnitedHealth Group Center for Health Reform and Modernization has proposed a 15-point plan for the US government, which would bring about a $540 billion saving in healthcare costs over the next decade.

The suggestions given by the health insurer - largely concerning the Medicare health program for the elderly - include referring patients to cost-efficient doctors; reducing hospital visits by the elderly, and cutting avoidable and gratuitous care.

The recent report by the Minnesota-based health management company UnitedHealth Group - which is the biggest partaker in the government's Medicare insurance program for the elderly - comes in the wake of the healthcare industry's undertaking to rally round President Barack Obama in finding ways to save nearly $2 trillion to help finance medical coverage for the almost 46 million uninsured Americans.

Noting that the report "puts some flesh on the bones" of the pledge, Simon Stevens, the heads of the UnitedHealth Group Center for Health Reform and Modernization, told reporters: "If you simply expand coverage without doing anything to influence the underlying rate of healthcare cost growth, those coverage expansions may not be sustainable."

However, outside experts are somewhat skeptic about the UnitedHealth Group proposals, which they term as "wishful thinking." Saying that the suggestions mostly involve voluntary actions by patients, experts added that they would not reform the causal payment system, which inclines towards quantity instead of quality.