Medical Waste

In a fine recent volume entitled “Best Care at Lower Cost”, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences deconstructed medical waste in America. The chart below, adapted from the report, enumerates the sources of estimated waste.

Of course, these numbers are merely the study panel’s best estimates and clinical judgments. One can imagine a lively debate over some of the estimates, especially the estimated $210 billion spent on “unnecessary services” or the estimated $105 billion attributed to “excessively high prices". And yet, it is almost certain that American costs are significantly higher than those in other developed nations, such as Canada.