“About a third of what we spend on health care is not adding clinical value”

Len Nichols, director of the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation, says there are two driving factors for the high cost of U.S. health care compared to other countries: one is that employers bear a larger share of the costs for the total health care structure, and the second is that the health care system is inefficient. He says the U.S. spends twice as much on health care as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average, and that about one third of the money spent on health care is not adding clinical value. (0:49)
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