Running time: 18 minutes

JAMA has just published an analysis of the latest findings regarding waste in the nation’s $3.5 trillion annual health “co-pay.” And with 25% of that — some eight hundred billion dollars — characterized as wasted, you’d think there would be stacks of competing cost-saving proposals to consider, especially regarding administrative costs. There aren’t.

An editorial comment on all this by our guest, Don Berwick, reminds us that one person’s wasteful spending is another’s lavish income. The question is, with all that money left on the table, what are we foregoing as a country?

Dr. Berwick has thoughts, and he kindly agreed to share them with us.

JAMA article by Shrank et al.

JAMA editorial by Berwick