Americans with private health insurance got no reprieve from cost increases last year as medical expenses for each person rose 8.2 percent, roughly the same rate of increase as 2003, according to a new study.
The annual increase in health spending peaked at 11.3 percent in 2001 and has leveled off at a high rate, said the study by the Center for Studying Health System Change. The nonpartisan Washington-based center is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, N.J.
Health spending last year grew 2.6 percentage points faster than the overall U.S. economy, the researchers said.
For the fourth year in a row, employers in 2005 increased workers’ share of the cost of health insurance, through higher deductibles and co-payments, the center said.
“If health-care spending continues to grow at a significantly faster rate than workers’ incomes, and there’s every sign that it will, health insurance will become unaffordable to more and more people,” said Paul Ginsburg, an economist and president of the center.
Prescription-drug spending accounted for 21 percent of the overall increase in health-care spending, the center said. Drug costs rose at a slower rate in 2004, 7.2 percent, than the 8.9 percent in 2003, as prices increased at a lower rate.
