Anne Martin, David Lassman, Lekha Whittle, Aaron Catlin and the National Health Expenditure Accounts Team
Health Affairs
January 2011
In 2009, US health care spending grew 4.0 percent — a historically low rate of annual increase — to $2.5 trillion, or $8,086 per person. Despite the slower growth, the share of the gross domestic product devoted to health spending increased to 17.6 percent in 2009 from 16.6 percent in 2008. The growth rate of health spending continued to outpace the growth of the overall economy, which experienced its largest drop since 1938. The recession contributed to slower growth in private health insurance spending and out-of-pocket spending by consumers, as well as a reduction in capital investments by health care providers. The recession also placed increased burdens on households, businesses, and governments, which meant that fewer financial resources were available to pay for health care. Declining federal revenues and strong growth in federal health spending increased the health spending share of total federal revenue from 37.6 percent in 2008 to 54.2 percent in 2009.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/30/1/11.full#aff-5
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
How much are we spending on health care?
For 2009:
National health expenditures: $2.5 trillion
Percent of GDP: 17.6%
Spending per person: $8,086
Although the title of this article and the news reports stemming from it tout the fact that this is the slowest increase in health care spending in five decades, the 4.0 percent increase is well in excess of inflation and remarkably high considering that it occurred during the Great Recession.
Perhaps the most impressive number that demonstrates this increased spending on a background of the recession is the percent of federal revenues that were directed to federal health spending. Federal revenues decreased 18.2 percent while federal health spending increased 17.9 percent. Thus the federal revenues directed to federal health spending increased from 37.6 percent in 2008 to 54.2 percent in 2009. Over half of the recession-impacted federal revenues were spent on federal health programs!
These numbers demonstrate that even a severe recession was unable to reduce the increase in health care spending to anywhere near the rate of inflation nor the growth in GDP (gross domestic product).
Since the cost containment measures in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) are so weak, there is little hope for truly significant relief from escalating costs in the foreseeable future. Yet just the administrative savings alone of a single payer system would be much more effective, and there is no reason that an improved Medicare covering everyone couldn’t adopt some of the modest but beneficial cost-saving measures of PPACA so long as they have no detrimental policy impacts.
Instead of repealing PPACA, we need to retain the beneficial measures, but then replace the flawed financing component with one that will work – an improved Medicare for all.
