Data Brief: Understanding U.S. Health Care Spending
Julie Schoenman, Ph.D., and Nancy Chockley, M.B.A., NIHCM FoundationDownload the PDF | Request hard copies | Subscribe to NIHCM mailings
July 2011
In this data brief we examine why we spend more than $8,000 per person on health care and the factors driving spending growth. Our analyses document the extreme concentration of expenditures, with just 5 percent of the population responsible for almost half of all spending, and demonstrate the importance of rising spending for hospital and physician services as the primary drivers of expenditure growth.