National Health Costs (NHE, National Health Expenditures)

While we debate Health Care note that:

• NHE grew 5.8% to $3.2 trillion in 2015, or $9,990 per person, and accounted for 17.8% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• Medicare spending grew 4.5% to $646.2 billion in 2015, or 20 percent of total NHE.
• Medicaid spending grew 9.7% to $545.1 billion in 2015, or 17 percent of total NHE.
• Private health insurance spending grew 7.2% to $1,072.1 billion in 2015, or 33 percent of total NHE.
• Out of pocket spending grew 2.6% to $338.1 billion in 2015, or 11 percent of total NHE.
• Hospital expenditures grew 5.6% to $1,036.1 billion in 2015, faster than the 4.6% growth in 2014.
• Physician and clinical services expenditures grew 6.3% to $634.9 billion in 2015, a faster growth than the 4.8% in 2014.
• Prescription drug spending increased 9.0% to $324.6 billion in 2015, slower than the 12.4% growth in 2014.
• The largest shares of total health spending were sponsored by the federal government (28.7 percent) and the households (27.7 percent).   The private business share of health spending accounted for 19.9 percent of total health care spending, state and local governments accounted for 17.1 percent, and other private revenues accounted for 6.7 percent.