Political Quotes

“today I am asking experts at the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institute, as well as other leading experts, for specific ideas about how Congress and the President can work together to reduce the cost of healthcare in the United States. Here is why. Last July, at the Senate HELP Committee's second in a series of five hearings on reducing healthcare costs, Dr. Brent James, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, testified that 30 percent--and perhaps as much as 50 percent--of all the money spent in this country on healthcare is unnecessary. That startled me, and I hope it startles you. So I asked another witness, Dr. David Lansky from the Pacific Business Group on Health, if he agreed with Dr. James' estimate that 50 percent of all the money spent on healthcare is unnecessary. Dr. Lansky said yes. Then, in our next hearing on reducing healthcare costs, not one witness on our distinguished panel disagreed with Dr. James. That means we are spending as much as half of all we spend on healthcare on unnecessary treatment, tests, and administrative costs. As a country, we spend a huge amount on healthcare--$3.5 trillion in 2017, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. When we use Dr. James' estimates, that means we spent roughly $1 to $1.8 trillion on unnecessary healthcare in 2017. That is more money than the gross domestic product of every country in the world except nine.…”