Government Spending On Healthcare Outpaces Other Sources
Much of the debate about the health reform has been on whether or not it will lead to government-run health care. But the fact is that the government’s share of health care spending already is growing at a faster rate than private spending, a trend accelerated by the recent economic recession.
A new report from Medicare’s actuaries, published in the journal Health Affairs, found that “Federal government spending for health services and supplies increased 10.4 percent in 2008 . . . and accounted for almost 36 percent of federal receipts, up considerably from 28 percent in 2007. By comparison, spending for health care by private businesses grew just 1.2 percent in 2008, in part because of a drop in the proportion of employer-sponsored insurance premiums paid for by employers” while “health care spending by households grew 4.3 percent in 2008, a deceleration from 5.9 percent growth in 2007” but still more than the adjusted personal income growth of 2.7%.
The current economic recession, the authors say, had two major impacts on health spending: Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
