Health Care Spending Up; Government’s Share Up
The Kaiser Health News service says that the percentage of the economy going to health care increased to 17.3% last year, by “the largest leap yet.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the percentage of health care paid for by government keeps going up, too. “By 2012, government health care expenditures will top private spending for the first time.”
Health care is a good, but like anything else, if the people who consume it are the same ones who pay for it, consumer and provider discipline will keep costs low. But when the people who consume something are not the ones who pay for it, that discipline disappears.
This is borne out in the comments of one of the authors of a new federal report on spending. Speaking of comparative effectiveness research and investments in information technology, Steve Heffler said, “We do not project that any of those provisions… are going to have a noticeable impact on the rate of growth [of health spending].”
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