The U.S. health-care system is just as wasteful as President Barack Obama says it is, and proposed reforms could be paid for by fixing some of the most obvious inefficiencies, preventing mistakes and fighting fraud, according to a Thomson Reuters report released this morning.

The U.S. health-care system wastes between $505 billion and $850 billion every year, the report from Robert Kelley, vice president of health-care analytics at Thomson Reuters, found.

“America’s health-care system is indeed hemorrhaging billions of dollars, and the opportunities to slow the fiscal bleeding are substantial,” according to the report.

“The bad news is that an estimated $700 billion is wasted annually. That’s one-third of the nation’s health-care bill,” Kelley said in a statement. “The good news is that by attacking waste, we can reduce health-care costs without adversely affecting the quality of care or access to care.”

One example: a paper-based system that discourages sharing of medical records accounts for 6 percent of annual overspending.

“It is waste when caregivers duplicate tests because results recorded in a patient’s record with one provider are not available to another or when medical staff provides inappropriate treatment because relevant history of previous treatment cannot be accessed,” the report said.

Other findings include:

– Unnecessary care such as the overuse of antibiotics and lab tests to protect against malpractice exposure makes up 37 percent of health-care waste.

– Fraud makes up 22 percent of health-care waste, or up to $200 billion a year in fraudulent Medicare claims, kickbacks for referrals for unnecessary services and other scams.

– Administrative inefficiency and redundant paperwork account for 18 percent of health- care waste.

– Medical mistakes account for $50 billion to $100 billion in unnecessary spending each year, or 11 percent of the total.