Gee I wonder why I used the exact phrase organized as non profits.

But hundreds of millions in executive salaries at companies that pay billions in insurance claims isn't the thing driving health care costs. It barely registers.

Administrative overhead in 2014 accounted for 25% of US hospital spending.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/in-the-literatu...

Overall the administrative overhead is 8% for healthcare in the US, more than double global average (3%)

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/11/news/economy/healthcare-admi...

And further to that point, the admin side of US healthcare costs have massively expanded - similar to what has occured in education - over the last 30 years.

That 25% share, is about double what it is in Canada (although a few are equally high, the Netherlands is at 20%).

The famous chart showing the US growth in admin vs physicians since 1970: https://i.imgur.com/lnIcjo2.jpg

Is there one that shows dollar amounts instead of growth?

If a dollar amount chart showed the same effect it would do a better job of making the point that chart is intended to make. But I think it is pretty likely that the 1970 administrative baseline is tiny (because in 1970 there were lots of small hospitals run by 1 doctor).

It needs to be inflation adjusted, and then you have to agree about which inflation measure (there are several, and the differences over 50 years are significant)

But you could sidestep all of that by comparing to other countries, non of which ever had a significant number of “small hospitals run by 1 doctor”; their expenditure as a percentage is mostly consistent through the years and about half as high as the US, with similar trends in education.

Presumably the underlying data for the linked chart is already adjusted for inflation. And the index used doesn't matter all that much, it will be applied to both data series and various inflation measures aren't that different anyway.

The higher administrative costs at US hospitals account for something like 3% or 4% of total US healthcare spending. A huge win if you take it all back and not any sort of solution to the cost problem.

Different inflation measures can diverge up to 1%/year, so at 50 years, the choice matters a lot. Also, things like "core CPI" get redefined through the years (in a way that almost always makes them lower) and other "hedonistic" adjustments are not universally accepted.

While I see your point, "CEO/Executive Pay" is a poor indicator of waste in these organizations. Fundamentally, Non-profits need to operate like businesses, in the sense that their balance sheets need to remain stable and their income needs to cover their costs. The difference between a non-profit and a corporation of course exists, in their respective names imply, in who they're beholden to. Non-profits exist to not make a profit, where "for-profit" corporations exist to deliver a profit to their shareholders. For-profit corporations pay their CEOs exorbitant amounts as well, and for non-profits to recruit talent, they have to do the same.