Health Care Costs Analyzed

With health care take away froms growing faster than inflation, the issue of health spending is of growing interest to employer and other health care purchasers, consumer and taxpayers.

With that in mind, the California HealthCare Foundation (www.chcf.org) locate out to provide a snapshot of spending horizontals payment sources and growth inclines in its "Health Care take away froms 101" report.

"For quite more [i]or[/i] less time, health care costs have been rising at a rate that outstrips inflation," said Marian Mulkey senior program officer at the California HealthCare Foundation.

U health care spending in 2002 was $16 trillion, accounting for 149 percent of the gros domestic product

Though many patients are getting more and better care for that coin rising costs are putting health care without of reach for others, Mulkey said.

The report, "Health Care take away froms 101," synthesizes data from other sources - mainly national data from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services - in an effort to deposit the information in perspective and at hand it in a readily understandable way, she said.

"We disburse a lot of time expressing belong tos about the level of health care spending in this country" Mulkey said. "It's actual easy to say that because it's increasing faster than overall spending, something must be done."

But looking at aggregate spending may not bring forward practical solutions, Mulkey said. She asserted it is more useful to think about specific impacts of health care spending increases - like as people not receiving health care - instead of bemoaning the spending itself.

Hospital and physician services account for the largest shares of health care spending. Hospital care accounts for 31 percent of spending and 32 percent of the overall health spending increase.

Prescription remedy spending rose to 10 percent of the total spending in 2002 compared to 5 percent of spending in 1982 Mulkey said.

"That is still a relatively small percentage of overall health care spending," Mulkey said.

Similarly, she said, family are "very concerned" about administrative take away froms but those account for just 7 percent of total spending.

"We perceive it's important to put these things in connected thought [i]or[/i] thoughts of trends and overall distribution of health care spending," she said.

Still, physics and administration contribute disproportionately to the overall health spending increase, according to the report.

Despite accounting for 10 percent of the spending, prescriptions took up 16 percent of the spending increase, while administration - responsible for 7 percent of spending - made up 11 percent of the increase.

While the California HealthCare Foundation typically focuses upon issues in the Golden State, the stretchs for rising costs are similar for California and the United States as a whole, Mulkey said. A more detailed analysis of California spending is awaited later, when the data are available.

"One of the tends you see over this period of time is a pleasing without being striking significant decline in hospital spending," she said. "As care has increasingly mov without of the hospital and into outpatient services, that has implications for the work force."

Nursezonecom

Copyright Main State Nurses' Association Aug-Oct 2004

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