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Then it will be up to the insurers to decide how to manage with less money — so the effects of this cut are hard to predict.

Mr. Mead cited a report by the Institute of Medicine that tallied more than $760 billion in health care “waste” created annually as a result of consumer fraud, unnecessary procedures and excessive administrative costs.

r. Mead said the campaign also stressed the need for health care providers to shift to a model known as “accountable care,” which shifts their reimbursement models for health care professionals from being paid for the volume of services they perform to being paid based on the outcomes of patient care. Accountable care systems are usually linked to technologies that help health care providers measure performance and manage patient data. Aetna has 27 accountable health care agreements with hospitals and other health care providers around the country.

Bertolini said in the video. “If we fix just 20 percent of it, we could pay for the Affordable Care Act. We could insure everyone without increasing taxes.”

One-third of U.S. employers plan to move their workers’ health-care coverage to a private exchange in the next few years, a survey found, following the le

Health spending in the U.S. is expected to increase more than 6 percent this year and 6.2 percent annually from 2015-2022 as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act takes full effect and millions of Americans gain insurance, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Under Obamacare, companies that don’t offer coverage for their employees will be fined $2,000 per employee. Employers spend $6,000 per employee on average, so d

and nearly half have less than $1,000 on hand to deal with such expenses, according to a recent study by the disability insurer Aflac.

ut-of-pocket costs continue to rise even as healthcare inflation remains low.

Several hospital chains are driving the boom – including HCA Inc., which will open its seventh ER later this year in Florida, and Wake Med Health and Hospitals, which will add its fourth next month in the Raleigh, N.C., metro area. They regard the facilities as a way to expand into new markets, generate admissions to their hospital and reduce crowding at their hospital-based ERs.

reater Houston has 150 emergency rooms — twice the number as greater Miami -- even though its population is only slightly bigger, according to a KHN analysis.

While the ERs charge insurers double or triple the amount per patient as an urgent care center or doctor's office, patients use them for routine care that could be provided in less costly settings, Ho says. That is the case with standard ERs as well. Yet, insured patients have little incentive to drive past the more expensive, freestanding ERs because their co-payment is only $50 or $100, just modestly more than what it might cost for a visit to an urgent care center or doctor’s office. Their insurers pay the balance generally.