'Finish The Job': Staggering New Report Shows Largest Health Spending Increase in 50 Years
"We've got to finish the job on health care... We've got to finish the job even though it's hard."
-- President Obama, 2/3/10
Across the country, American workers, their families, and small businesses are struggling with rising health care costs and policies that put quality, affordable care out of reach. A new report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published in the magazine Health Affairs estimates that spending on health care grew to 17.3% of the U.S. economy -- a record and the largest one-year jump since 1960. The report also finds health care expenditures as a share of GDP is projected to grow to 19.3% by 2019, or account for 1 of every 5 dollars spent on health care, nearly twice the world average:
The urgent need for health reform has never been more clear -- failure is not an option. Experts commenting on the new report:
Richard S. Foster, Chief Actuary of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:
With higher unemployment, people lose their jobs [and] many of them lose their healthcare coverage in the process. And under current law, they don't have much to fall back on.
David Wessel, Economics Editor, Wall Street Journal:
If nothing changes, employers who still offer health insurance will pay more for it, and will pay lower wages as a result. In the Urban Institute's best case, employer premiums per worker will rise 64% over the next decade. In the worst case? They more than double. Gulp!
Stephen Zuckerman, Health Economist at Urban Institute:
Failure to enact health reform will result in increasing numbers of people without health insurance because fewer employers will offer it and many employees will not be able to pay the cost of plans that are available...For people not offered employer coverage, many will not be able to get coverage due to pre-existing conditions that insurers won't cover or because premiums simply won't be affordable. Even people with coverage will find costs becoming a greater financial burden.
Karen Davis, Commonwealth Fund:
The health system is hurting, and we are seeing that in these numbers.
In the absence of change, the report raises a grim prospect for the country -- a healthcare system consuming an ever greater and potentially unsustainable share of the economy even as private health coverage lags.
Kaiser Health News and USA Today on the state level impact:
The recession is forcing states such as Washington to pare back health insurance programs for low-income people, even as growing joblessness boosts demand for help. Five of six states that use state funds to assist adults not covered by Medicaid are considering cuts, barring new enrollment or raising fees...Some policy experts say such state programs wouldn't be needed if a health care overhaul passes because most adults who now qualify would fit the new Medicaid enrollment guidelines or be eligible for federal subsidies.