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January 07, 2009 at 10:44 AM
Total U.S. private health insurance premium expenditures increased more slowly in 2007 than overall national health expenditures increased.
The insurance premium expenditure increase also lagged behind the total health expenditure increase in 2006.
Researchers with the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published the health care and health insurance expenditure figures in a report published in Health Affairs, a health policy journal.
The analysis of the 2007 figures is the latest analysis available from the CMS Office of the Actuary.
Spending on private health insurance premiums rose 6% in 2007, to $775 billion, the researchers at the office report. The 2006 rate of increase was also 6%.
Total U.S. health care spending increased 6.1%, to about $2.2 trillion. The rate of increase fell from 6.7% in 2006.
Population growth accounted for some of the increase. Total U.S. health care spending averaged $7,421 per person in 2007, up only 5.1% from the 2006 average.
Total health care spending amounted to 16.2% of the U.S. gross domestic product, up from 16% in 2006.
Despite reports about employers pulling back from efforts to shift more responsibility for paying for care to employees, consumers’ out-of-pocket health care spending increased 5.3%, to $269 billion, up from a rate of increase of 3.3% in 2006, according to the CMS researchers.
