"We're not getting what we pay for," said Denis Cortese, president and chief executive of the Mayo Clinic. "It's just that simple."

Cortese and other healthcare executives estimate as much as half of the $2.3 trillion spent annually on medical care does nothing to improve health, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

An improved healthcare system would revolve around paying for results, which means managing chronic illnesses better, realigning financial incentives to reward success, encouraging disease prevention and rejecting costly, unproven therapies, healthcare providers told the post.

The United States devotes 16 percent of its gross domestic product to medical care -- more per capita than any other nation -- yet ranks

29th in infant mortality and 48th in life expectancy among industrialized nations, the Post reported.