White House budget director Peter Orszag said Friday reforming healthcare through higher costs is not the administration’s aim.

“We have been very clear that a deficit-increasing healthcare reform is neither practical nor desirable,” Orszag told the Financial Times in an interview.

Health reform would have to be budget neutral over 10 years and in the tenth year, while promising substantial savings over the long term, a senior administration official told the FT.

While universal healthcare is an ultimate aim, Orszag says there are ways of getting there.

“The president has said he wants a path to universal coverage,” he said. “There are different ways of putting us on a path to universal coverage.”

During his campaign for the President’s office last year, Obama admitted that his plan for health reform would not provide universal coverage for adults, only children.

At the time, candidate for President Hillary Clinton, now Obama’s Secretary of State, sought universal coverage through an insurance plan open to all, with insurance companies being required not to deny coverage.

Obama said at the time that cost reduction was a priority before universal care.

Healthcare U.S. Barack obama