Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Growth in U.S. Health Spending Remains Slow in 2010

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Public Affairs, Jan. 9, 2012

From the press release: "U.S. health care spending experienced historically low rates of growth in 2009 and 2010 according to the annual report of national health expenditures (NHE) published in the January issue of the journal Health Affairs. Analysts at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) report in the article that the increase in spending for 2009 represents the lowest rate of increase in the entire 51 year history of the NHE.   The low rate of growth, the data show, reflects lower utilization in health care than in previous years. The report notes that U.S. health care spending grew only 3.9 percent in 2010, reaching $2.6 trillion or $8,402 per person, just 0.1 percentage point faster than in 2009.    In 2010, as health spending growth remained low, growth in U.S. economy as reflected in gross domestic product (GDP) (4.2 percent) rebounded. As such in 2010, the health spending share of the overall economy was unchanged at 17.9 percent.  In the past, this share has increased, rising over time from 5.2 percent in 1960." Read more

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Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services


Anne B. Martin, Office of the Actuary, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; David Lassman, CMS Office of the Actuary; Benjamin Washington, CMS Office of the Actuary; Aaron Catlin, National Health Statistics Group in the CMS Office of the Actuary; and the National Health Expenditure Accounts Team, Health Affairs, January 2012 vol. 31 no. 1 208-219