8% of US healthcare costs spent on administration

People often wonder why health care in the United States is so expensive. The answer is complex, as they are many reasons. One of the reasons that Kaiser Health News highlighted in a recent article is that so many people work in the industry: over 10% of working Americans work in health care. It would be one thing if nearly everyone worked in the actual delivery of or product development for health care (still not the best situation, as that would imply Americans frequently become sick) , but the article reported that more than eight percent of US healthcare spending was on administration (compared to a global average of three percent): "America spent $631 for every man, woman and child on health insurance administration for 2012 compared with $54 in Japan."

It's unclear where the industry is headed from here, but in many ways, the industry does not seem healthy.