ItheEye
Registered user
Global user
Registered: 12-2004
Posts: 1313
Karma: 2 (+2/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Half of health care spending is wasted, study finds
surprise, surprise...
----------------------------------------
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Half of health care spending is wasted, study finds
Boston University report cites insurance costs excessive drug prices, fraud
Detroit News wire services
About 50 percent of health care spending is eaten up by waste, excessive prices and fraud, according to a report by Boston University researchers.
Major sources of unnecessary spending include administrative costs and profit in the insurance industry, high prices of prescription drugs and health services and, to a smaller extent, theft and fraud, according to the study released Wednesday.
U.S. health spending is projected to reach $1.9 trillion in 2005, according to the report. Spending for healthcare is gobbling up about one-quarter of the growth in the economy, and health-related items amount to more than three times the defense budget and twice what the nation devotes to education. Health care will consume 15.5 percent of the U.S. economy this year, up from 13.2 percent in 2002, the study notes.
Alan Sager, co-director of the health reform program at Boston University's School of Public Health and co-author Deborah Socolar arrived at their 50 percent waste estimate by culling published material such as comparisons of U.S. medical costs with those of other countries and estimates of administrative expenses in the U.S. health care system.
Sager argued that to curb waste doctors need to make more careful decisions to control runaway spending.
"We know there is enough money to take care of everyone, but not if we keep practicing blank-check mentality and using cost controls that have failed for decades," he said...
http://www.detnews.com/2005/health/0502/10/A04-85971.htm
---
ItheEye
|
|
2/12/2005, 1:56 pm
|
Link to this post
Send Email to ItheEye
Send PM to ItheEye
|
