Health spending grew little in 2014

Carolyn Kaster/APHealth-policy expert Douglas Holtz-Eakin speaks on Capitol Hill in 2010.

A White House blog post published a month before Obama’s statement was even more direct in drawing a causal link between the law and slow growth in U.S. health spending.

The nation’s respite from accelerating health care costs appears to be over.

Projected spending for the 2019 to 2024 period will increase to 6.2 percent per year on average due to the aging population, which will increase the number of people covered by Medicare, the insurance program for elderly people and the disabled.

“I do think this becomes something of a liability for anybody coming into office, and they need to have a very proactive policy to address it”, said Dan Mendelson, CEO of Avalere Health, a market analysis and consulting firm. However, growth rates of premiums and benefits in the private sector are expected to increase as enrollment increases in plans on the federal health exchange, according to the report. “For 50 years, Medicare and Medicaid have shown how effective policy can dramatically improve the lives of millions of Americans”. But the medical bills of many rose as employers shifted costs to workers.

It’s a big birthday today as Medicare turns 50 and advocates say the best way to celebrate the milestone would be to expand the program to all Americans.

The study found that prior to the ACA, health care was becoming more costly and less available to the average American, quickly leading them in a downward spiral toward poor health.

Growth in spending hit historical annual lows between 2008 and 2013 of about 4 percent.

Overall, pharmaceutical products drove an increase of 12.6 percent in 2014, 10.1 percent more than in 2013.

As it is, health care spending reached an estimated $3.1 trillion last year, or almost $9,700 per person.

National health spending experienced a boom during 2014 and it is expected that throughout the next decade, the increasing trend will continue.

Earlier this year, a report analyzed Medicaid expansion in Kentucky. The government cited the debut of high-cost prescription drugs for hepatitis C, such as Sovaldi, as the primary reason behind that jump.

“To the extent that these programs have been implemented and actually illustrated savings, they’ve been incorporated”, Gigi Cuckler, a CMS economist, said on a conference call with reporters. The higher rates in later years reflect the predicted growth in Medicare beneficiaries and medical price inflation. Dr. Michael Pakko, state economic forecaster, said it’s hard to extrapolate local data from a national report.

There’s no hard-and-fast rule about how much a society should spend on health care. On the other hand, more Medicare spending on that older population will result in an inflow of resources into the state. That has now changed and private insurance has taken the center stage as a consumer facing intermediary for the two programs.