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Health Care Spending Growth Slowed in 2012, But Consumers Continued To Spend More Out-of-Pocket, Says New HCCI Report

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WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

For the third consecutive year, the growth rate of health care spending among privately insured people under age 65 remained low at 4.0 percent, says the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI). Health care spending averaged $4,701 per person with employer-sponsored coverage in 2012, up $181 from the year before. In addition, out-of-pocket spending rose more quickly than expenditures per person in 2012, increasing 4.8 percent to $768.

The 2012 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report provides a detailed picture of health care spending for the 156 million Americans younger than age 65 with employer-sponsored health insurance in 2012. This years report analyzes the actual dollars spent and services used by over 25 percent of the nations privately insured population.

Key trends:

Although average health care expenditures grew at nearly the same rate in 2012 as 2011, the causes of the 4 percent increase in spending each year were quite different, said HCCI Executive Director David Newman. In prior years, rising health care prices drove up spending. In 2012, we saw utilization start to change health care trends for prescription drugs and professional procedures.

The 2012 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report is available on the HCCI website at: http://www.healthcostinstitute.org/2012report.

Read the full press release here.

The Health Care Cost Institute was launched in September 2011 supported by Aetna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, and UnitedHealthcare to promote independent, nonpartisan research and analysis on the causes of the rise in U.S. health spending. HCCI believes an improved understanding of the forces driving health care cost growth will help policy makers, researchers, and the public make decisions that will lead to better and more accessible and affordable care. HCCI is governed by a board that includes distinguished economists, actuaries and health care experts. For more information, visit http://www.healthcostinstitute.org or follow us on Twitter @healthcostinst.

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Health Care Spending Growth Slowed in 2012, But Consumers Continued To Spend More Out-of-Pocket, Says New HCCI Report

Health care policy expert to speak at Misericordia

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DALLAS TWP. American health care is broadly moving in the right direction, Susan Dentzer believes, but the system as a whole fails to provide value for the vast amounts of money spent on medical treatment in this country.

As a country, we spend more per capita than any other on health care and we dont have very good health outcomes to show for it, said Dentzer, a journalist and Washington, D.C.-based health policy adviser who will speak Oct. 4 at Misericordia University.

Her speech, The Future of Health Care in the United States, is part of the Misericordia University Annual Health Care Lecture Series.

The big issue on the table now, Dentzer said, is the implementation of the federal Affordable Care Act sometimes dubbed Obamacare for which open enrollment is scheduled to begin Oct. 1.

But Dentzer, a senior policy adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and health care analyst for PBS NewsHour, acknowledged in a recent interview with The Times Leader that it is just one consideration as the United States struggles to contain costs and improve the overall health of the American public.

In 2010, for example, Dentzer made headlines when she said America was guilty of child abuse for allowing childhood obesity rates to skyrocket.

Embracing more healthy lifestyle choices would go a long way toward making us healthier as a people and paring down mushrooming care costs, in her view.

Even if we get the best possible results from our health care system if we dont do something to stem the tide of obesity, chronic illnesses, of relatively poor health choices, then all bets are off, she said.

Even the smartest of us tend to make poor choices day-in and day-out, and those choices are conditioned by our environment, Dentzer said, adding that lives lived in cars, busy schedules and even which foods are given the best promotion in stores and restaurants can have a ripple effect on our health.

As well, Dentzer sees room for improvement in where, when and by whom health care services are delivered.

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Health care policy expert to speak at Misericordia

James Edwards encourages all of his fellow Veterans to seek care through VA Health Care System – Video

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James Edwards encourages all of his fellow Veterans to seek care through VA Health Care System
More than 100 recently injured Veterans from across the country are gathered in San Diego, Calif. for the 6th National Veterans Summer Sports Clinic. From Se...

By: DeptVetAffairs

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James Edwards encourages all of his fellow Veterans to seek care through VA Health Care System - Video

Aria presents plans for ‘health care village’ concept at Lower Makefield supervisors meeting as alternative to …

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By D.E. Schlatter 21st Century Media News Service

LOWER MAKEFIELD - At the Sept. 18 board of supervisors' meeting, Aria Health officials formerly presented a concept calling for an outpatient health care village instead of a traditional hospital to be built at the intersection of Stony Hill Road and the Newtown Bypass.

For several years, the health-care provider has been embroiled in a high-octane battle with township officials and residents over building a large-scale hospital and medical office complex on the site, which is zoned office/research. It would replace its current facility on Oxford Valley Road near the mall, formerly known as Frankford Hospital.

The trend nowadays is toward outpatient facilities rather than intensive care, said W. Brian Sundermeir, senior vice president of the MRA Group, a Horsham-based real estate firm which Aria has retained to develop the 41-acre site on what was once part of the Shady Brook Farm.

According to Sundermeir, the concept is an exciting new trend in outpatient health care services which had cropped up in Florida and California, but not in this area.

Our vision is to bring the health care village to Lower Makefield, he said while presenting a 20-minute slide-show to the more than 80 residents attending the supervisors meeting. Reception to the idea appeared lukewarm from both residents and the supervisors.

Sundermeir explained that the trend in health care is toward outpatient services, instead of intensive care.

He said that the number Lower Makefield residents who are 65 and older is expected to increase 18 percent in the next few years, with the need for health care services in the township anticipated to rise16 percent.

Originally Aria had proposed building a 375,000-square-foot hospital, 40,000-square-foot ambulatory surgery center along with a 40,000-square-foot medical office building at the Shady Brook Farm site.

But Sundermeir said that a heath care village would be much smaller, roughly 180,000-square-feet with about 600 parking spots and buildings which are only two or three stories tall.

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Aria presents plans for ‘health care village’ concept at Lower Makefield supervisors meeting as alternative to ...

Forum asks: Is single-payer the future of Ohio health care?

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At a recent public forum, community members had the opportunity to learn more about single-payer health-care systems.

The forum was hosted by the Single Payer Action Network, Ohio (SPAN), a statewide coalition of organizations and individuals who say they're working to enact fundamental health-care reform that guarantees full and comprehensive access to a full range of medical services.

Insurance exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) are set to open Oct. 1 nationwide, making access to affordable health care a primary concern for many Ohioans.

Whether referred to as single-payer or Medicare for all, SPAN believes the current market-driven system is not sustainable. Under a single-payer health-care system like Medicare, medical service providers would be paid directly by the federal government.

During an opening presentation, SPAN Ohio Director Debbie Silverstein stressed that the issue of health care and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act evokes very strong emotions.

"We want health care to be there when we need it but what if resources aren't there? Obamacare is a good start but we're not done yet," Silverstein said. "Health care is a basic human need."

Proponents of single-payer systems cite reduced administrative costs in Medicare compared to those of for-profit medical insurance companies. Silverstein noted that since 1970, the health-insurance industry has seen a 2,500 percent rise in the number of administrative jobs compared to a roughly 100 percent increase in jobs for direct health-care providers.

Opponents to single-payer systems argue that Americans without health insurance are not denied access to care, citing federal law that requires hospitals to treat people without insurance.

Speaking in Cleveland in 2007, then-President George W. Bush addressed an effort in Congress to expand eligibility to State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), cited a common argument against government having a larger role in access to health care.

"I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room," Bush said. "I mean, think of it this way: They're going to increase the number of folks eligible through SCHIP; some want to lower the age for Medicare to get more people to be a part of a federalization of health care. In my judgment, it would lead to not better medicine, but worse medicine. It would lead to not more innovation, but less innovation."

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Forum asks: Is single-payer the future of Ohio health care?

No cure for health care cynicism

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Offered an opportunity for simple and inexpensive health care coverage for many thousands of low-income working Pennsylvanians, Gov. Tom Corbett instead has chosen political coverage for himself.

Well, politically and practically, the governor is in a tough spot. To rally the hard-right wing of his Republican Party for his shaky re-election prospects, he can't just accept the abundant benefits offered to the commonwealth by that wing's favorite bogeyman, "Obamacare." At the same time, it's horrendous governance and, therefore, bad politics in its own right, to walk away from expanded health care coverage that not only creates health care access for thousands, but ensures that health care providers will be paid for the costs of billions of dollars' worth of care that they otherwise have to swallow.

Mr. Corbett came into office as a plaintiff in the failed lawsuit claiming that the federal Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. And he further cemented his bona fides against expansion of health coverage to low-income workers by making cancellation of the adultBasic health care program one of his first acts as governor.

A principal device of the Affordable Care Act to expand insurance coverage is to enroll millions of low-income workers in the state-federal Medicaid program. Those people work but do not have coverage through their employers, and don't earn enough to buy coverage. Under the law, the federal government would cover 100 percent of the cost for three years, after which the state would have to pick up just 10 percent each year.

The Supreme Court upheld the law but ruled that states may choose whether to participate in the Medicaid expansion. Doing so should be a no-brainer because it's such a good deal.

Mr. Corbett, however, has concocted a complex hybrid plan that would funnel billions of dollars to private insurers instead of enrolling the new participants directly in Medicaid, which could provide the coverage at less cost.

Federal regulators would have to approve that. And the governor included a poison pill - requiring Medicaid applicants to show that they actively are seeking work. Most of the prospective new enrollees work, which is why they don't qualify for Medicaid in the first place. And the feds already have rejected the work requirement for Medicaid in two other states. If they reject the Corbett plan, the governor will blame the lack of expanded coverage on the feds.

The governor has advised the Legislature that it's an all-or-nothing proposal that does not require its approval. Lawmakers who care more about public health than politics should disabuse him of that notion and enact simple, apolitical, low-cost Medicaid expansion.

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No cure for health care cynicism

Coopwood Lays Out Future of Health Care

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VOL. 128 | NO. 185 | Monday, September 23, 2013

Health care was the hot topic Thursday, Sept. 19, as nearly 150 people gathered in the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art auditorium to discuss the current landscape and impending changes in that field.

Dr. Reginald Coopwood, president and CEO of The Regional Medical Center at Memphis, presents the keynote at The Daily News' Health Care: State of the Industry seminar on Sept. 19. Coopwood provided an overview of the business of health care in Memphis.

(Andrew J. Breig)

Health Care: The State of the Industry one of six seminars in The Daily News 2013 Seminar Series attracted a variety of professionals, most of them from outside the medical realm. They included lawyers, architects, administrative professionals, Realtors, assisted-living specialists and bankers, among others, and most of them were eager to learn more about the Affordable Care Act and how it would affect them. Others came to be inspired.

Primarily we came here to hear what Dr. Coopwood had to say. Hes an interesting person, said Senior Care Management Solutions Director Jason Gibert of keynote speaker Dr. Reginald Coopwood, president and CEO of The Regional Medical Center at Memphis. Also, this seminar addressed a lot of issues that are key to us regarding end-of-life care.

Coopwood, who was hired in March 2010, is credited with overseeing The MEDs financial turnaround, and with directing improvements that include an $800,000 renovation of the facilitys emergency department, enhancements to the womens services department, new technology and plans for expansion.

His speech provided an overview of the business of health care in Memphis, including the flurry of preparations for Oct. 1.

Any health care organization had better be preparing for the enactment and rollout of this law, as imperfect as it may be, Coopwood said of the Affordable Care Act. It is changing health care in that were moving forward in a way that really has not been seen in many, many years.

A variety of professionals, many from outside the medical sector, attend The Daily News' Health Care: State of the Industry seminar Sept. 19.

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Coopwood Lays Out Future of Health Care

GOP divided over health care, government shutdown

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MACKINAC ISLAND, mich. A divide over the health care law separates the emerging field of potential GOP candidates for the 2016 presidential race, previewing the battles ahead as they try to rebuild their party and seize the White House.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz says he will fight "with every breath" to stop President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement, even if that means shutting down parts of the federal government. It's an approach that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush calls "quite dicey" politically for Republicans.

Allied on the other side are Cruz, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and others who say they are making a principled stand, willing to oppose the law at all costs.

Then there are those taking what they call a pragmatic approach by accepting the law, if grudgingly, and moving on. This group includes Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, who says a shutdown would violate the public trust.

"The government we have should work, so that's why I don't believe we should shut the government down," Walker told reporters after speaking at a Republican conference in Michigan on Saturday.

The Republican-controlled House passed a short-term spending plan Friday that would continue funding government operations through mid-December while withholding money for the health law.

Some GOP lawmakers also advocate holding back on increasing the nation's borrowing limit, which could result in a first-ever default, unless the law is brought down.

Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to scold "a faction on the far right" of the Republican Party, and he said he would not allow "anyone to harm this country's reputation or threaten to inflict economic pain on millions of our own people, just to make an ideological point."

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder hosting a state Republican conference where Walker and two other 2016 prospects, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, planned to speak Saturday said a shutdown "reflects poorly on the national political culture."

Jindal said last week, "I do think the party needs to be more than the party of 'no.' "

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GOP divided over health care, government shutdown

Generosity Begins With You – University of Utah Health Care Employee Giving Campaign – Video

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Generosity Begins With You - University of Utah Health Care Employee Giving Campaign
At the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics employees are giving back to help save the smallest of patients. In this video, Julie Pierce tells her story ...

By: Avantgarde Productions

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Generosity Begins With You - University of Utah Health Care Employee Giving Campaign - Video


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