A new report has found that the US Health Care System wasted $750 billion on unnecessary and overpriced medical treatments and tests. The report was released by the Institute of Medicine. It is believed that all of this wasted money could have gone to provide health insurance or cover certain salaries. Click below to read more.
The U.S. health care system wasted $750 billion on unnecessary and overpriced medical tests and treatments, administrative fees, medical fraud and missed prevention opportunities in 2009, a new report found.
The report, released today by the Institute of Medicine, suggested the money squandered on services that failed to improve Americans’ health could have provided health insurance for more than 150 million workers or covered the salaries of all of the nation’s first responders for more than 12 years.
“I was surprised at how much waste there seems to be,” said report author Dr. Mark Smith, a former expert adviser to President Clinton’s Task Force on National Health Care Reform and president of the Oakland-based California HealthCare Foundation. “We’re spending money in ways that don’t seem to improve people’s health.”
The wasted money could provide health insurance coverage for more than 150 million workers, according to the report. And 75,000 deaths might have been prevented if states delivered higher-quality care.
The U.S. spends more than twice as much per person on health care as all other industrialized countries despite being the only developed country that doesn’t provide basic health insurance for all its citizens, according to Dr. Timothy Johnson, ABC News senior medical contributor and author of “The Truth About Getting Sick in America.”
The U.S. also has the lowest life expectancy among the top five spenders on health care, Johnson wrote in his book.
