The Truth About Costs

Bob Laszewski at Health Care Policy and Marketplace Review highlights a recently released Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Synthesis Project report authored by Paul Ginsburg from the Center for Studying Health System Change.

“High and Rising Health Care Costs: Demystifying U.S. Health Care Spending” is very interesting reading.  This especially:

If the efficiency of the delivery of services could by increased by 20% over 10 years, this would roughly close the gap between health care spending and GDP over that period.

Mr. Laszewski explains:

The bottom line is that if we want to contain our health care costs we need to find productivity improvement in things like technology use, treatment patterns, and administrative overhead.

…

The big-ticket play is in productivity—the more discriminate use of medical technology, consistently practicing outcomes-based medicine, and reductions in system overhead particularly in the insurance system.