USA Spent $2.2 Trillion, 16.2% of GDP, on Health Care in 2007
Health spending in the United States grew 6.1 percent in 2007, to $2.2 trillion or $7,421 per person.
This outstanding chart of Housing versus GDP going all the back to 1945. Note the two began to diverge in 1999 — my experiences then were what we used to call smart money in the late 1990s were taking some stock winnings off of the table and diversifying then into a different asset class – namely, Real Estate.
The observations of this phenomena (at least in NY) was this rotation was less financial wealth planning and more lifestyle upgrade.
It looks like we swapped wage/price inflation for asset inflation since the early 80’s. GDP/Housing was >1 in a big way in the 70s. Consider your local taxes and growth of the budget based on asset inflation, can we sustain the bite?
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70% OF THE U.S. ECONOMY IS A FUNCTION OF THE CONSUMER!!! CONSUMPTION OF GOODS LESS HEALTH CARE IS APPROXIMATELY 50% ...
As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), health care spending is expected to reach 17.7 percent in 2012, up from 14.1 percent in 2001, after hovering just above 13 percent from 1993 through 2000. This increase reflects a combination of faster projected growth in health spending and slower GDP growth.
The Labor Department reported that wholesale inflation was up 6.3 percent for all of 2007, reflecting a huge increase for the year in various types of energy costs ranging from gasoline to home heating oil.] The local government therefore has grown based on inflation and an inflated asset value, how long can be continue to accept this deception?
For comparison the total GDP per person in China is $6,100. This continues the trend of health care spending taking an every increasing portion of the economic output (the economy grew by 4.8 percent in 2007). This brings health care spending to 16.2% of GDP (which is yet another, in a string of record high percentages of GDP spent on health care). In 2003 the total health care spending was 15.3 of GDP.
With the exception of prescription drugs (which grew at 1.4% in 2007, compared to the 3.5% in 2006), spending for most other health care services grew at about the same rate or faster than in 2006. Hospital spending, which accounts for about 30 percent of total health care spending, grew 7.3 percent in 2007, compared to 6.9 percent in 2006.
Spending growth for both nursing home and home health services accelerated in 2007 (4.8% v. 4.0%). Spending growth for freestanding home health care services increased to 11.3 percent. Total health care spending by public programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, grew 6.4% in 2007 v. 8.2% in 2006. In comparison, health care spending by private sources grew 5.8% compared to 5.4%. Consider now the addition of a increased number of participate if the congress lowers the threshold of access to 55 years of age.
Private health insurance premiums grew 6.0 percent in 2007, the same rate as in 2006. Out-of-pocket spending grew 5.3 percent in 2007, an acceleration from 3.3 percent growth in 2006. Out-of-pocket spending accounted for 12.0 percent of national health spending in 2007. This share has been steadily declining both recently and over the long-run; in 1998, it accounted for 14.7 percent of health spending and, in 1968, out-of-pocket spending accounted for 34.8 percent of all health spending.
The costs for health services and supplies for 2007 were distributed among businesses (25%), households (31%), other private sponsors (4%), and governments (40%).
Decades ago Dr. Deming included excessive health care costs as one of the seven deadly diseases of western management. We have only seen the problem get worse. Finally it seems that a significant number of people are in agreement that the system is broken. Still, admitting the system is broken is not the same as agreeing on how to fix it. The way forward to workable solutions still seems very difficult.
FED RATE IS 0% ... DUH!!!
