Health News and Scoops

U.S. health care spending in 2009 grew at the slowest rate in 50
years, as the recession and high unemployment caused outlays for
nearly all medical goods and services to slow or decline, according
to a government report released Wednesday.

Unlike previous recessions, when spending for health services
began to slow some two years after an economic downturn, the effect
of the Great Recession was swift and profound on insurers, health
care providers and patients in both 2008 and 2009.

Total public and private spending for health services grew by 4
percent to $2.5 trillion, or $8,086 per person in 2009.

That’s up from $7,845 per person in 2008, when annual health
outlays increased only 4.7 percent, the second-slowest rate in the
last half a century, the Department of Health and Human Services
reported.

Fueling the spending slowdown in 2009 was a 3.2 percent decline
in private health insurance enrollment as 6.3 million people lost
job-based coverage that year.

That loss of private coverage also curbed growth in
out-of-pocket spending by patients, many of whom delayed medical
care because of a lack of cash.

Both trends, in fact, caused spending for dental services to
decline in 2009 for the first time ever.

“We had an unemployment rate that was higher than any other
recent period,” said Anne Martin, an HHS economist.

“That contributed to a large number of people losing their
health insurance and having much less income to devote to health
care.”

Martin said elective hospital patient admissions declined in
2009, as did spending for nursing home, physician and clinical
services.

Tighter restrictions on consumer credit probably exacerbated the
problem, leaving cash-strapped patients with one less source of
funds, said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying
Health System Change.

“Many (patients) may not even have credit cards now, or they may
have a lower limit on them,” Ginsburg said.

Recent surveys have found that 36 percent of patients see their
health care providers less frequently and 59 percent went to their
primary physician less often, said Aaron Catlin, deputy director of
the National Health Statistics Group at the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services.

Despite the spending slowdown, the share of gross domestic
product devoted to health care increased to 17.6 percent in 2009,
up a record 1 percentage point from 2008.

Ginsburg said the one-year jump in the share of GDP is
exaggerated because most other segments of the economy were flat in
2009.

Nevertheless, more than one-sixth of the nation’s financial
resources were spent on health care in 2009.

And the government absorbed a larger share of the bill, spending
more than $678 billion for health care in 2009, nearly 18 percent
more than in 2008. In total, the government also absorbed 27
percent of the total U.S. health care bill — up 3 percentage points
from 2008.

Meanwhile, households, private businesses, and state and local
governments saw their share of U.S. health spending drop by about 1
percentage point each.

Most of the federal spending increase stems from 3.5 million
adults and children who lost job-based health insurance in 2009 and
enrolled in Medicaid, the state- and federally funded health
insurance plan for low-income Americans.

Article source: Read More

Related posts:

1. Health-care spending rose less in 2009
2. Despite Budget Increase, Health Care Fraud Cases Decline
3. Health organization, nonprofit gear up to meet demand for care
4. ‘Health Care at Home Movement’ Set to Revolutionize American Health Care System, According to Industry Leaders
5. Home health care could help sustain health care systems, study finds