PNHP

Wrong way to slow health care spending

Growth In US Health Spending Remained Slow In 2010; Health Share Of Gross Domestic Product Was Unchanged From 2009

By Anne B. Martin, David Lassman, Benjamin Washington, Aaron Catlin and the National Health Expenditure Accounts Team
Health Affairs, January 2012

Abstract

Medical goods and services are generally viewed as necessities. Even so, the latest recession had a dramatic effect on their utilization. US health spending grew more slowly in 2009 and 2010ā€”at rates of 3.8 percent and 3.9 percent, respectivelyā€”than in any other years during the fifty-one-year history of the National Health Expenditure Accounts. In 2010 extraordinarily slow growth in the use and intensity of services led to slower growth in spending for personal health care. The rates of growth in overall US gross domestic product (GDP) and in health spending began to converge in 2010. As a result, the health spending share of GDP stabilized at 17.9 percent.

Conclusion

Health care spending experienced historically low rates of growth in 2009 and 2010 as the impact of the recent recession continued to affect the purchasers, providers, and sponsors of health care. Persistently high unemployment, continued loss of private health insurance coverage, and increased cost sharing led some people to forgo care or seek less costly alternatives than they would have otherwise used. As a result, growth in the use and intensity of health care goods and services in 2010 accounted for a much smaller share of personal health care spending growth than in previous years. Finally, as businesses, households, and state and local governments financed a smaller share of total national health care spending during and just after the recession, the federal government financed a larger share.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/1/208.abstract

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

For the present, growth in health care spending has leveled off at 17.9 percent of our GDP. But how? By high unemployment, continued loss of private health insurance, and increased cost sharing – all measures that prevent people from getting the health care that they should have. If you exclude from consideration this inappropriate decline in health care services, then you can only conclude that health care costs have continued their inexorable rise unabated. We desperately need a sane system of financing health care.

Wrong way to slow health care spending

Growth In US Health Spending Remained Slow In 2010; Health Share Of Gross Domestic Product Was Unchanged From 2009

By Anne B. Martin, David Lassman, Benjamin Washington, Aaron Catlin and the National Health Expenditure Accounts Team
Health Affairs, January 2012
Abstract
Medical goods and services are generally viewed as necessities. Even so, the latest recession had a dramatic effect on their utilization. US health spending grew more slowly in 2009 and 2010ā€”at rates of 3.8 percent and 3.9 percent, respectivelyā€”than in any other years during the fifty-one-year history of the National Health Expenditure Accounts. In 2010 extraordinarily slow growth in the use and intensity of services led to slower growth in spending for personal health care. The rates of growth in overall US gross domestic product (GDP) and in health spending began to converge in 2010. As a result, the health spending share of GDP stabilized at 17.9 percent.
Conclusion
Health care spending experienced historically low rates of growth in 2009 and 2010 as the impact of the recent recession continued to affect the purchasers, providers, and sponsors of health care. Persistently high unemployment, continued loss of private health insurance coverage, and increased cost sharing led some people to forgo care or seek less costly alternatives than they would have otherwise used. As a result, growth in the use and intensity of health care goods and services in 2010 accounted for a much smaller share of personal health care spending growth than in previous years. Finally, as businesses, households, and state and local governments financed a smaller share of total national health care spending during and just after the recession, the federal government financed a larger share.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/31/1/208.abstract

For the present, growth in health care spending has leveled off at 17.9 percent of our GDP. But how? By high unemployment, continued loss of private health insurance, and increased cost sharing – all measures that prevent people from getting the health care that they should have. If you exclude from consideration this inappropriate decline in health care services, then you can only conclude that health care costs have continued their inexorable rise unabated. We desperately need a sane system of financing health care.