A report from the Center for American Progress states that administration costs for healthcare in the United States are well above those in other high-income countries, accounting for 8.3 percent of spending in the healthcare sector, compared to a global average of about 3 percent. According to the report, average billing and insurance-related costs per patient encounter include $215 for inpatient surgery, $62 for an emergency room visit, and $20 for a primary care visit. The report noted that a structural overhaul of finance and pricing in the healthcare industry would greatly help in eliminating excess administrative costs, but moving to a complete single-payer healthcare system is not mandatory. According to the report, setting uniform rates where all health insurers pay the same price for services would go a long way to reducing administrative costs. Source: Sarah Kilff, "2 charts that show our healthcare administrative costs are really high," vox.com, April 8, 2019. The article discusses the high administrative costs of healthcare in the United States. Even if private insurance companies were more efficient and brought administrative costs down, consumers would pay more than the full cost of medical treatment. This would result in the market equilibrium price and quantity of medical services being less than the efficient equilibrium price and quantity.