National Health Expenditures

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MEPS vs. NHEA

December 20, 2011 in CHIP, Data, Econometrics, Medicaid | No comments

Many researchers use household data sources to examine a variety of hypothesis.  The use of household data has many benefits including allowing for more detailed socioeconomic information (e.g., education, income) beyond what is contained in administrative claims files.  One drawback of household data is that extrapolations made from household survey data may not match national estimates.

For instance, this article examines how to align the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to aggregate U.S. benchmarks provided in the National Health Expenditure Accounts (NHEA).  Today, I review some of these adjustments.

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History says bending the health care expenditure curve may not be feasible

October 6, 2011 in HC Statistics | 1 comment

Many health policy researchers talk about bending the cost curve; this means reducing the rate of health care spending below GDP growth.  U.S. health spending, however, has consistently grown faster than GDP for nearly a century.  Woodward and Wang show that this relationship is surprisingly stable over time, even after the advent of large government entitlements.

“…simple extrapolations of trends observed in the years before Medicare and Medicaid are surprisingly accurate. For example, if one extrapolates the relationship between 1950 and 1960 to the per capita GDP in 2008, the error in predicted per capita NHE in 2008 is 8.6%. Or if one extrapolates the trends defined by the relationship between per capita NHE and per capita GDP in 1929 and 1965 to the per capita GDP in 2008, the error in predicted NHE in 2008 is 11.8%.”

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Health Spending Climbs to 16.2% of GDP

January 25, 2010 in HC Statistics | 5 comments

From the CMS Office of the Actuary:

U.S. health care spending growth decelerated in 2008, increasing 4.4 percent compared to 6.0 percent in 2007, as spending growth slowed for nearly all health care goods and services, particularly for hospitals. Health spending growth for state and local and private sources of funds also slowed while federal health spending growth accelerated in 2008. Total health expenditures reached $2.3 trillion in 2008, which translates to $7,681 per person and 16.2 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Despite slower growth in overall health expenditures, the share of GDP devoted to health care increased from 15.9 percent in 2007.

A detailed table of health expenditures by service type (e.g., hospital, physician services) can be found here.

Also interesting is the changes in spending by payor.  While overall Medicaid expenditure growth decelerated between 2007 and 2008, the composition of expenditures changed significantly.  Federal Medicaid spending increased by 8.4%, but state Medicaid spending actually decrease by 0.1%.  A table providing more information on the changes health expenditures by payer is available here.

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