WASHINGTON: Health care spending will increase more substantially over the next decade and outpace the growth rates of earnings, inflation and even the US economy, according to government projections published in the Health Affairs.
The government estimates the United States' total health care bill to exceed $4 trillion by 2015, taking up about 20 percent of the US's GDP. The numbers in the report reflect a growing trend where Americans expect the government to pay increasingly more over their health care.
Although, the report says that health care spending could take up one fifth of the nation's GDP, the burden will be much lower on the consumer as medicines cost increasingly less. Firstly, because the government could pay half of the projected figures for health care. And secondly, the growing reliance on generic drugs, advancing medical technology and huge bulk discounts by pharma companies would make drugs much cheaper for Medicaid insurers.
The report indicates this possibility as out-of-pocket spending would drop to 12.6 percent from 15.1 percent. Out-of-pocket spending is the consumer's share of the average spending on health care per person which was $6,683 in 2005 and would grow to $12,320 by 2015.
Although medicines could become cheaper, there is still this worrying aspect that more poor people – those without medical insurance, such as the working poor, would be unable to afford treatment.
President Bush, very recently, urged Americans to take the benefit of health savings accounts (HSAs). Through these HSAs, families can ensure they are able to meet high cost medical emergencies through special deductible insurance plans. Savings in these HSAs give them the added benefit of tax-saving.
The report was prepared by analysts from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
