Note: None of this should be taken as legal or tax advice.
Last week, the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the annual
National Health Expenditures report. Since 1960, this report has summarized trends in health care spending.
This year's edition shows that U.S. health care spending experienced historically low rates of growth in 2009 and 2010.
The increase in spending for 2009 was the lowest rate in the 51-year history of the report – 3.8 percent. In 2010, the rate of growth was just 0.1 percentage point faster: 3.9 percent, reaching $2.6 trillion, or $8,402 per person. Health care spending accounted for 17.9 percent of the nation's gross domestic product.
Other key findings include:
- Spending on private health insurance premiums totaled $848.7 billion in 2010 and increased 2.4 percent (premiums increased 2.6 percent in 2009).
- The number of people enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans increased 5.6 percent in 2010 (they increased 10.5 percent in 2009).
- Total federal and state Medicaid spending accounted for 15 percent of national health care spending in 2010, reaching $401.4 billion – a growth rate of 7.2 percent.
- Medicare spending grew 5 percent in 2010 to $524.6 billion (it had growth of 7 percent in 2009).
- Hospital spending increased 4.9 percent to $8.14 billion in 2010 (it increased 6.4 percent in 2009).
- Spending on physician and clinical services increased 2.5 percent in 2010, to $515.5 billion (down from 3.3 percent growth in 2009. The drop reflects a decline in utilization).
- Retail prescription drug spending grew 1.2 percent to $259.1 billion in 2010 (down from a 5.1 percent growth in 2009. This was driven by an increase in the use of generic drugs, the loss of patent protection for certain brand name drugs, fewer new drug introductions, slower growth in the volume of drugs consumed, and an increase in Medicaid prescription drug rebates).
