Reforming the nation's health insurance market is the most significant step policymakers can take to reduce the U.S. deficit, a top adviser said on Monday.

"Done correctly, health care reform can genuinely slow the growth rate of health care costs and thus put us on a path to greatly reduced budget deficits in the long run," Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), said in prepared remarks.

Romer will deliver her remarks in a speech later on Monday at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think-tank.