By the Numbers: A Closer Look at Healthcare Spending in America

Data Shows Sluggish Economy as Reason Behind Historic Drop in Health Spending Rates

Despite repeated claims that the president’s signature domestic policy, Obamacare, has helped to reduce health spending in the nation, the data tells a different story.

In fact, just this month millions of consumers across the country learned they’ll be squeezed by Obamacare’s sticker shock in 2016.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services most recent rate review, 676 individual and small group plans have requested premium spikes in the double-digits. And, that’s on top of the individual market premium increases averaging 49 percent between 2013 and 2014.

Even more, the federal government’s own actuaries at Office of the Chief Actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have found that the recent,”…four-year historically low rate of health spending growth, which was primarily attributable to sluggish economic recovery.”

Taking note of America’s slow economic rebound since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, these same government economists said, “The fact that recent health spending increases have not returned to their prerecession rates is consistent with the long-standing relationship between overall economic growth and health spending growth.”

And, government analysts continue to agree Obamacare will lead to increased health spending.

The Office of the Chief Actuary for CMS found that, “The combined effects of the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansions, faster economic growth, and population aging are expected to fuel health spending growth this year and thereafter (5.6 percent in 2014 and 6.0 percent per year for 2015–23).”  And, they predict, “…a stable share of economic output is projected to end in 2014, primarily because of the coverage expansions of the ACA.”

That’s just a closer look at healthcare spending in America.

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