The combined team at Petersen-KFF have a new data brief that looks at past, current and projected future national healthcare spending. There is one graph that leaps out at me. It is actual spending versus two different Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services projections from 2010 and 2015.
This is stunning!
The 2032 projection using current data is 2 trillion dollars or just over 20% less than what the 2010 projections updated with current growth rates would have projected. This is a massive positive fiscal wedge for the federal budget even as the uninsurance rate has been reduced by over 50%.
Now how that is happening is the source of numerous long monographs and energetic conference panels but pragmatically, it is a lot of deficit reduction pressure and budget cuts that Congress won’t feel like they need to make.
Baud
Thanks, Obama.
narya
Wow–that is amazing. I’m gonna guess that having people be insured reduces spending–but I would have no clue how to test or prove that. Maybe compare a county or a couple of counties in a non-Medicaid-expansion state with counties in an early-expansion state
ETA: and also look at kids’ health in some detail.
Another Scott
Something something if something cannot continue forever, it will stop. – Herb Stein.
I’m reminded that during the Obamacare battles and when GM said it was paying $2k per car for healthcare costs, there was the mantra that other modern countries were paying half what we were for health care. And it was probably true!
But the trendlines for US healthcare and EU healthcare seemed to be, if one looked carefully enough, converging. More increasing slopes in the EU, decreasing slopes in the US. And that makes sense as the world gets more connected, trade in services increases, average ages increase and converge, and all the rest.
Is that trend continuing? Is there some mean % of GDP that we should expect modern economies to converge toward? Presumably at some point, rates of change will slow. Where will we end up (assuming no giant wars, no giant pandemics, and other black-swan events.)?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mousebumples
Very cool thanks! Do you have a link to the KFF data? I’m not sure if it’s published yet – otherwise, I can keep an eye out/Google. 😊
3Sice
Those states refusing to expand Medicaid are costing you, Mr and Mrs America, M O N E Y.
HinTN
That won’t stop Rs from screaming 1) Fake News, gotta cut and 2) These savings need to become tax cuts.
Fuck em
David Anderson
@Mousebumples: Link is here: healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/how-much-is-health-spending-expected-to-grow/#Health%20spen…,%202017%20-%202022;%20projected%202023%20-%202032
And the post has been updated — thank you!
Ohio Mom
@HinTN: You beat me to it, Republicans will never give up tax cuts. Data and logic hold no meaning for them.
Mr. Bemused Senior
It’s worse: they know the facts are against them. Their strategy [ETA to retain power] is to confuse people as much as possible.
Yet another reason we must defeat them.
Mousebumples
@David Anderson: appreciate it, thanks! I’ll have to read it more closely on my lunch later. 😊
TBone
@Ohio Mom: I was just coming in with an “oh, you sweet summer child” comment. Glad to see I’m not the only
curmudgeonrealist.dnfree
This is very good news, and I wonder how widely it will be spread. Thank you for keeping us informed.
RevRick
Those savings are cumulative! We are already saving about $1trillion/year, so over a ten year period that adds up to a $15 trillion savings, resources freed up for all the other economic sectors. It could be used, for instance, to address climate change (glances over shoulder at the havoc Milton is going to wreak).
VOR
I once thought companies would look at the amounts they were spending on healthcare for workers and seek to offload that cost on the Federal government. In my naive mind, I thought this bit of capitalist greed would lead to universal healthcare. Instead, their executives were more interested in tax cuts.