The Medicare spending we should be concerned about

The Medicare spending we should be concerned about

The Medicare spending we should be concerned about

Here are the payment figures that really caught my eye:

• $12 billion spent on outpatient visits in 2012, with average reimbursement of $57 per visit. This is out of a total Medicare spending of $600 billion for the year.
• $77 billion overall paid to doctors and health care providers. (Unclear to me whether this is just Part B, or also includes payments to doctors during hospitalizations.)
• $13.5 billion spent on “commercial entities like clinical laboratories and ambulance services.”