Opinion: Healthcare waste deconstructed—fraudsters and patients aren’t the problem

The National Academy of Sciences reports that US wastes $750 billion on healthcare. Fraud and inadequate prevention accounted for only 17 percent of the waste. The rest of the waste, 83 percent, was accounted for by other factors; unnecessary services, unnecessarily high prices, excessive administrative costs due to too many insurance companies and types of insurance; inefficiently delivered services due to a lack of coordination among doctors, hospitals and other providers. This problem could be solved by putting our health-care system on a budget-driven diet while simultaneously expanding access.