U.S. Health Care System Wastes $750B Annually, Report Finds
About 30 percent of health spending in the United States in 2009 — about $750 billion — was wasted on unnecessary services, excessive administration costs, fraud and other problems, a government advisory panel said Thursday.
The report from the Institute of Medicine urges that changes be made to the United States’ health care system to reduce costs and improve care.
Institute of Medicine experts added, however, that inefficiency, a vast amount of data and other economic and quality issues obstruct efforts to improve health and threaten the nation’s economic stability and global competitiveness, the document warned.
Numerous inefficiencies caused needless suffering. One estimate indicates that about 75,000 deaths might have been prevented in 2005 if every state had delivered health care at the level of the best-performing state.
Gradual upgrades and changes by individual hospitals or health care providers are inadequate to solve the problems, the report committee said.
Frank says: