US Health Spending Growth Slows, Though Not on Hospitals
The key word in the administration’s announcement of slower health spending growth in 2004 is “growth,” as total healthcare still grew by $1.9 trillion or 7.9 percent, which took it to 16 percent of GNP, way above all other nations and double the proportion of 1993. At 8.2 percent, growth in prescription drug costs was at its slowest in a decade, a sign of how much spending in that area grew in the last years. While spending on hospitals grew by 6.5 percent in 2003, down from 8.5 percent growth in 2002, it bounced back at 8.6 percent in 2004 (with construction of new facilities among the causes for that surge) along with 9 percent growth on doctors. All these growth numbers are still way above core inflation and income growth - in other words, on an unsustainable path.
Spending for hospital care totaled $570.8 billion, hospital spending by private insurers rose 9.5 percent, and Medicaid spending on hospitals increased 9.9 percent. National health expenditure data can be found here on the CMS site though this section does not reflect the 2004 numbers yet. The 2004 spending report, authored by Cynthia Smith, Cathy Cowan, Stephen Heffler, Aaron Catlin the National Health Accounts Team, is available on Health Affairs. See also articles in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) released its 2005 National Healthcare Quality And Disparities Reports which found “modest overall progress in quality of care for Americans.” Metrics about patient safety and medical errors were encouraging, though some of the data tables in the report’s appendix stop in 2002 or 2003. According to the governement’s research: “[t]he diseases and populations which showed the most improvement in quality measures are diabetes, heart disease, respiratory conditions, nursing home care, and maternal and child health care. The overall rate of change for these measures was 5.4 percent. The diseases and populations which showed the least improvement in quality measures are HIV and AIDS, cancer, end stage renal disease, mental health and substance abuse, and home health care. The overall rate of change for these measures was 0.3 percent.”
January 10, 2006 Related topics: Trends, Quality, Safety, Errors