Report: Health Care Spending to Absorb a Fifth of GDP by 2020

By Haydn Bush	July 29, 2011
A new report in Health Affairs projects that U.S. health care spending will grow to over $4.6 trillion by 2020.

A report this week in Health Affairs projects that overall U.S. health care spending will reach $4.638 trillion, or 19.8 percent of GDP, by 2020. From 2010-2020, the report estimates that health care spending will grow at an average of 5.8 percent per year.

In particular, the report projects a spike in health care spending of 8.3 percent in 2014, when key provisions of the Affordable Care Act are implemented and 22.9 million newly insured Americans begin using additional health care services.

Among the other findings:

• National health care spending reached nearly $2.6 trillion in 2010, up 3.9 percent from 2009.
• In 2010, spending in U.S. hospitals increased 4.6 percent to $794.3 billion.
• In 2010, the health care share of U.S. GDP remained at 17.6 percent, roughly the same as 2009.
• Medicare spending reached $525 billion in 2010. However, the overall growth rate slowed from 7.9 percent in 2009 to 4.5 percent in 2010, which the report attributed primarily to a 3.4 percent reduction in Medicare's payments to private health plans.

Click here to read the full report.

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Source: http://www.hhnmag.com/hhnmag/HHNDaily/HHNDailyDisplay.dhtml?id=1800004419

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