Costs of health care administration in the United States and Canada.(Health Care Costs)

"In the United States, health care administration cost $294.3 billion. In Canada, health care administration cost $9.4 billion. After exclusions, administration accounted for 31% of health care expenditures in the United States, as compared with 16.7% of health care expenditures in Canada.

In 1999, U.S. private insurers retained $46.9 billion (if the $401.2 billion they collected in premiums. Their average overhead (11.7%) exceeded that of Medicare (3.6%) and Medicaid (6.8%). Overall, public and private insurance overhead totaled $72.0 billion--5.9% of the total health care expenditures in the United States.

The overhead costs of Canada's provincial insurance …