Public health programs will remain the largest costs for the U.S. government for the foreseeable future, but former Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services director Donald Berwick is saying that people should not blame Medicare and Medicaid for this.

He told Kaiser Health News that the healthcare delivery system is in need of fundamental reforms to eliminate waste and inefficiencies. If this were to be accomplished it would help control government health spending.

"Health care is broken," Berwick told the news source. "We have set up a delivery system that is fragmented, unsafe, not patient-centered, full of waste and unreliable. Despite the best efforts of the workforce, we built it wrong. It isn't built for modern times."

Berwick was a major proponent of the 2009 healthcare reform legislation, as he felt it may address many of these issues. However, he pointed out that it may not lead to improvements in healthcare quickly enough to satisfy the laws' Republican critics.

Throughout his tenure as CMS director, Berwick championed the use of technology like electronic health records to improve the quality of care, make services more coordinated and improve patient safety.