Growth in healthcare spending in the United States has remained low for the fourth consecutive year, according to a report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The report covered national health spending as of 2012, with findings indicating that spending grew 3.7 percent overall with a decline from 17.3 percent in 2011 to 17.2 percent in 2012 for share of the economy spending.
“For the second straight year, we have seen overall health care costs grow slower than the economy as a whole. This is good news,” said Marilyn Tavenner, administrator for the CMS, in a press release. “We will continue to work with tools given to us by the Affordable Care Act that will both help us control costs for taxpayers and consumers while increasing the quality of care.”
In part, the low spending growth was due to private insurance, prescription medication, Medicaid expenses and nursing home spending growing at a slower pace.
On The White House Blog, White House health policy coordinator, Jeanne M. Lambrew said that healthcare spending in the U.S. between 2009 and 2012 grew at the slowest rate since the 1960s.
How much the Affordable Care Act has impacted the slower spending growth remains to be seen, since some of the reforms were just being put into place in 2012. However, Lambrew pointed out that the growth in Medicare spending did reduce and those savings are most likely continuing through to the private sector.
Medicaid spending grew 3.3 percent in 2012, according to the CMS report. Though spending went up from 2011 to 2012, the overall spending growth rate was “historically low.”
“The slowdown in the rise of health care costs, thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act, has already begun to pay dividends in the form of savings for American consumers, lower costs for businesses, and our rapidly declining deficits,” Lambrew said. “This work will continue in 2014 as we bring millions more into the health insurance system.”
For full the full the National Health Expenditure Accounts report, click here.
.){kind=link}