High prices, not waste or over-use, drive high health care costs in the US

The US spends nearly 18 percent of its GDP on health care, making it a real outlier among high-income countries in this area. But what is behind this unusually high level of health care spending? Irene Papanicolas investigates common beliefs about why spending is so high, including that US residents use more health care services, have poorer quality of care, and use 'too much' inpatient care. She finds that higher costs in the US are largely driven by higher prices across a wide range of health care services such as surgical procedures and drugs, as well as administrative complexity and costs.