Trends underlying employer-sponsored health insurance growth for Americans younger than age sixty-five
Little is known about the trends in health care spending for the 156 million Americans who are younger than age sixty-five and enrolled in employer-sponsored health insurance. Using a new source of health insurance claims data, we estimated per capita spending, utilization, and prices for this popul...
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Published in | Health Affairs Vol. 32; no. 10; pp. 1715 - 1722 |
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Main Authors | , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
The People to People Health Foundation, Inc., Project HOPE
01.10.2013
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Little is known about the trends in health care spending for the 156 million Americans who are younger than age sixty-five and enrolled in employer-sponsored health insurance. Using a new source of health insurance claims data, we estimated per capita spending, utilization, and prices for this population between 2007 and 2011. During this period per capita spending on employer-sponsored insurance grew at historically slow rates, but still faster than per capita national health expenditures. Total per capita spending for employer-sponsored insurance grew at an average annual rate of 4.9 percent, with prescription spending growing at 3.3 percent and medical spending growing at 5.3 percent. Out-of-pocket medical spending increased at an average annual rate of 8.0 percent, whereas out-of-pocket prescription drug spending growth was flat. Growth in the use of medical services and prescription drugs slowed. Medical price growth accelerated, and prescription price growth decelerated. As a result, changes in utilization contributed less than changes in price did to overall spending growth for those with employer-sponsored insurance. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0278-2715 1544-5208 |
DOI: | 10.1377/hlthaff.2013.0556 |