Is The Health Care Spending Slowdown Over?
Americans used more medical care in 2013 as the economy recovered, new reports show. Federal data suggests that health care spending is now growing just as quickly as it was prior to the recession.
“We’re at the highest level of growth since the slowdown began,” Paul Hughes-Cromwick, a senior health economist at the Altarum Institute, which tracks health spending. “You have to go back seven years to see growth like this.”
“Americans used more medical care in 2013 as the economy recovered, new reports show.”
This was also pre-ObamaCare marketplace plans. Ease up on claims that there won’t be a slowdown until we find out what happens in 2014.
“We’re at the highest level of growth since the slowdown began,”
What if ObamaCare is the continuation of the slowdown?
Or it could be a continuation of the speed up of health care spending. More people have access to health care, surely spending will be increasing as well.
Exactly, I wouldn’t become so optimistic until we find out what happens with ObamaCare and how many stay insured and are uninsured.
We rebounded since the recession, I feel health care spending will only go up from here now that people have more confidence both financially and with health coverage.
It likely will end up somewhere around the previous was before the recession, but not rise to the levels it was at.
Judging from the revenues of the insurance companies, whose stock price have jumped dramatically thanks to their increased revenues, it doesn’t surprise me that expenditures have increased. But I wonder if these higher expenditures reflect better healthcare?
I’d like to see if there is a way to measure the quality of health care during the slowdown. Whether quality changes based on spending.
I think you may be forgetting that Obamacare requires insurance companies to refund premiums if their medical care payouts are less than 85% of the premiums. Higher premiums no longer mean better insurance company margins.
I think you also forget that the states regulate premiums – the insurance companies cannot just make them up. Premiums must be justified based on the medical costs they are intended to pay for.
The reason insurance premiums are on the rise is that medical costs are on the rise. There seems to be no end to denial of this simple fact. But it is nevertheless a fact.
Insurance companies are definitely reaping the benefits as expenditures are increasing.
Insurance companies were the ones that benefited the most from this reform. It doesn’t surprise me that they supported it. Obamacare didn’t make healthcare more affordable it made healthcare more profitable to insurers.
I think I went into the wrong business, should’ve gone into health insurance.
Oh, they did more than support it, they helped write it.
Government and insurance companies had perverse incentives. Perverse incentives everywhere.