title: Waste, economists and American healthcare.
abstract: Twenty-five years ago, Uwe Reinhardt pointed out that sheer bureaucratic waste, particularly in the private sector, accounted for much of the extraordinarily high cost of American health-care. Last year an expert panel of the Institute of Medicine reconfirmed his point, estimating that in 2009, administrative waste accounted for $190 billion out of a total of $765 billion in various forms of waste--31% of overall American spending on healthcare. Reinhardt recently noted a peculiar schizophrenia among American economists, simultaneously deploring this monumental waste while celebrating the contribution of healthcare, and particularly medical research, to the American economy. The apparent paradox may arise from a confusion between the meanings of "value" in economic and everyday language, and from economists' tendency to create pseudo-aggregates of diverse and non-commensurate entities.
authors.forename: Robert G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Evans
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017048:Health Care Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005102:Health Expenditures / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States; D019564:Unnecessary Procedures / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data