Health spending in the United States continued to grow in 2013, but at a slower pace, according to the latest annual health spending report from CMS’s Office of the Actuary.
Last year, U.S. health spending grew at 3.6 percent, with total national health expenditures hitting $2.9 trillion, or $9,255 per person. The annual OACT report showed health spending continued a pattern of low growth — between 3.6 percent and 4.1 percent — for five consecutive years.
The low growing in health spending coincides with modest growth in gross domestic product, which averaged 3.9 percent per year since the end of 2010. As a result, the share of the economy devoted to health remained unchanged over this period at 17.4 percent.
Total national health spending slowed from 4.1 percent growth in 2012 to 3.6 percent in 2013. The report attributes the 0.5 percentage point slowdown in health care spending growth to slower growth in private health insurance, Medicare, and investment in medical structures and equipment spending. However, faster growth in Medicaid spending, due to Medicaid expansion, partially offset the slowdown.
Other findings from the report:
- Medicare spending, which represented 20 percent of national health spending in 2013, grew 3.4 percent to $585.7 billion, a slowdown from growth of 4.0 percent in 2012. This slowdown was primarily caused by a deceleration in Medicare enrollment growth, as well as net impacts from the Affordable Care Act and sequestration. Per-enrollee Medicare spending grew at about the same rate as 2012, increasing just 0.2 percent in 2013.
- Spending on private health insurance premiums (a 33 percent share of total health care spending) reached $961.7 billion in 2013, and increased 2.8 percent, slower than the 4.0 percent growth in 2012. The slower rate of growth reflected low enrollment growth in private health insurance plans, the continued shift of enrollees to high-deductible health plans and other benefit design changes, low underlying medical benefit trends, and the impacts of the Affordable Care Act.
- Medicaid spending grew 6.1 percent in 2013 to $449.4 billion, an acceleration from 4.0 percent growth in 2012. Faster Medicaid growth in 2013 was driven in part by increases in provider reimbursement rates and some states’ expanding benefits.
- Out-of-pocket spending (which includes direct consumer payments such as copayments, deductibles, spending by the insured on services not covered by insurance, and spending by those without health insurance) grew 3.2 percent in 2013 to $339.4 billion, slightly slower than annual growth of 3.6 percent in both 2011 and 2012.