Health Care Spending Publications

Spending for Private Health Insurance in the United States. The total cost of health care for a typical family with employer-sponsored coverage has more than doubled in the past decade to nearly $21,000 per year, outpacing both inflation and income growth. Skyrocketing health care costs are already straining budgets and could jeopardize the availability of affordable coverage under the ACA. This brief examines trends in premiums and cost-sharing in the group and non-group markets, how premium dollars are spent by insurers, which sectors are driving premiums upward, and the importance of price increases in explaining spending growth. By Julie Schoenman, PhD, NIHCM Foundation, January 2013.

The Concentration of Health Care Spending. Spending for health care in the U.S. is highly concentrated among a small subset of Americans. Just 5 percent of the population accounted for nearly half of all health care spending in 2009. This data brief examines the characteristics and health conditions of the highest spenders, the persistence of high spending patterns over time, the challenges in targeting the most expensive cases for better care management, and the implications of concentrated spending for risk-based payment and insurance market reforms. By Julie Schoenman, PhD, NIHCM Foundation, July 2012.

Government Spending for Health Entitlement Programs. This data brief closely examines the budgetary implications of government spending on health entitlement programs, including: the spending down of the Medicare Part A Trust Fund and the growing reliance of the program on general revenue financing, the imbalance between Medicare contributions and benefits from the perspective of individual beneficiaries, the pressures on federal and state governments due to rapid growth in Medicaid spending, and the impact of various health spending and revenue scenarios on the federal fiscal outlook. By Julie Schoenman, PhD, NIHCM Foundation, June 2012.

U.S. Health Care Spending: The Big Picture. This data brief pulls together the most current data available from multiple sources to provide an overview of national health spending. The brief covers trends in health spending growth and the problem of excess growth, the sectors driving increased spending, the growth in public versus private spending, and changes in consumer out-of-pocket spending. By Julie Schoenman, PhD, NIHCM Foundation, May 2012.

Understanding U.S. Health Care Spending. 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. By Julie Schoenman, PhD, and Nancy Chockley, MBA, NIHCM Foundation, July 2011.