The Costs of Health Care Administration in the United States and Canada — Questionable Answers to a Questionable Question

Since 1986, Woolhandler and Himmelstein, alone or with others, have written a series of articles that follow a simple template.15 In them, the authors measure the administrative costs of the U.S. and Canadian health care systems, subtract the second from the first, and note the difference. This issue of the Journal contains another article in the series.6 The authors report that the difference between the United States and Canada in outlays for health care administration seems to be increasing. Others have provided alternative estimates of administrative costs in the United States and elsewhere.79 This literature has been motivated, . . .