Health spending at slowest rate in 48 years

Bethesda, Md.—Economic recession is cooling off the expanding health care economy broadly and dramatically, government economists said in an annual health spending report.

Health spending growth slowed down to 4.4 percent in 2008, the slowest rate of growth in 48 years. The dental growth rate also declined but not as dramatically nor as low while dental spending increased from $96.3 billion in 2007 to $101.2 billion or $332 per person in 2008 as measured by the National Health Expenditure Accounts and reported in the journal Health Affairs www.healthaffairs.org.

Total national health spending reached $2.3 trillion, or $7,681 per person. “Despite the overall slowdown in national health spending growth, increases in this spending continue to outpace growth in the resources available to pay for it,” the NHEA team reported.

“Health care spending is often thought to be somewhat insulated from the immediate impact of a downturn in the overall economy,” the report said. “However, the current economic recession appears to have exerted considerable influence on the health sector in 2008, as nominal national health spending growth decelerated to 4.4 percent, the slowest rate of increase over the past forty-eight years.”

The historical NHEA time series tracks health spending from 1960 forward.