New U.S. Health Care Spending Estimates Reflect ACA Coverage Expansions and Higher Drug Costs
<p>A report released this week by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) shows that annual growth in U.S. health care spending increased to 5.3 percent in 2014, up from 2.9 percent in 2013, after five years of historically low growth. In a new blog post, The Commonwealth Fund’s Sara R. Collins and David Blumenthal, M.D., explain that the increase resulted in part from 8.7 million Americans gaining insurance under the Affordable Care Act, as well as rapid growth in prescription drug spending.</p><p>The authors say that despite the rise in the number of insured, growth in per-person private insurance spending was lower than in earlier years. They also note that growth in consumer out-of-pocket health spending slowed, and per-person Medicaid spending dropped. Collins and Blumenthal also examine the key drivers of pharmaceutical spending.</p>
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/ealerts/2015/dec/new-us-health-care-spending Read the post