Health Care Spending Growth Remains At Historic Low

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Altarum headquarters in Ann Arbor. Photo by Dwight Burdette via Wikimedia Commons.

ANN ARBOR (WWJ) Heres more evidence that something is keeping health care price and spending increases low in the American economy.

The Ann Arbor health care consulting firm Altarum Institute reported Wednesday that national health care prices in August 2013 were 1 percent higher than in August 2012, down one-tenth from the July 2013 level and equal to the May 2013 rate, which was the all-time low in Altarums history of recording the data, which extends back to January 1990.

The 12-month moving average, at 1.5 percent, is a new low for the Altarum data. Hospital price growth fell to 1.5 percent, its lowest rate since 1.3 percent in December 1998, while physician prices grew a scant 0.3 percent.

Hospital price growth plays a dominant role in the total index via its spending weight, and its low August reading was complemented by a decline in home health prices (down 0.2 percent) and durable medical equipment (down 0.1 percent), plus moderate growth otherwise.

National health expenditures in August 2013 grew 3.8 percent over those of August 2012 and kept the annualized growth rate at 3.8 percent for 2013 to date. The health spending share of GDP was 17.4 percent in July 2013, the same as at the conclusion of the Great Recession in June 2009. Thats well below the 18 percent share that has been previously reported over the past few years and is strictly due to a change in GDP accounting that occurred in July 2013.

These data come from the monthly Health Sector Economic Indicators briefs released by Altarum Institutes Center for Sustainable Health Spending, http://www.altarum.org/HealthIndicators.

Due to the federal government closure, labor data for September, scheduled for Oct. 4 release, were not reported. Altarum says it will issue a new HSEI Labor Brief about the growth of health care employment when new labor data are ready.

Health care prices have been growing more slowly than prices in the rest of the economy for four consecutive months, said Charles Roehrig, director of the center. If this continues for the rest of 2013, we may find that spending growth for 2013 has dropped below the record low 3.9 percent growth experienced since 2009.

Altarum Institute provides research and consulting to the health care industry. Based in Ann Arbor, it has additional offices in the Washington, D.C., area; Portland, Maine; and San Antonio, Texas.

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Health Care Spending Growth Remains At Historic Low

The shutdown, the debt and health care: a primer

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These are complicated times in the affairs of Washington and the nation, with death stars everywhere and all of them a struggle to comprehend. The partial government shutdown, the debt limit squeeze just around the corner, sequestration, how they fit with the health care law, how they don't _ it just goes on.

So we've cooked up some questions about this grim galaxy and taken a stab at answers:

Q: Which is better, "Obamacare" or the Affordable Care Act?

A: When late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel asked people this question, they thought they could choose between the two, and they opted for the nice-sounding Affordable Care Act as the way to go in health care.

They are, of course, the same. Opponents of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul came up with the catchy nickname "Obamacare" and it spread to the point that even Obama uses the term sometimes. The difference is in how people say it. Republicans tend to spit it out. Obama says Republicans will stop calling it "Obamacare "when it becomes really popular.

On the other side of this, there's been a strong trend in Washington in recent decades of giving backslapping names to laws. Even laws have spin now in their titles. It's like naming your baby Precious.

When Franklin Roosevelt set up public pensions in 1935, he didn't call it the Happy Retirees Act or the Justice for Deserving Seniors Act or the Golden Years Contentment Act. He called it the Social Security Act. In those apparently more serious and less pandering times, perish the thought of a No Child Left Behind Act.

A nice title is no guarantee of results. Many people in both parties want to leave No Child Left Behind behind because they feel it's leaving children behind.

The full name of Obama's law is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Indeed, patients have new protections against losing their insurance. But the many questions about how affordable insurance and medical care will turn out to be aren't put to rest by a law's reassuring name.

There's no doubt dressed-up labels help sell things, though. Orange roughy has done much better in the seafood marketplace since its name was changed from slimehead.

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The shutdown, the debt and health care: a primer

Sharp’s futuristic Health Care Support Chair – a proactive health care solution #DigInfo – Video

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Sharp #39;s futuristic Health Care Support Chair - a proactive health care solution #DigInfo
Sharp #39;s futuristic Health Care Support Chair - a proactive health care solution (http://www.diginfo.tv/v/13-0074-r-en.php) 30/9/2013 CEATEC JAPAN 2013 Sharp ...

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Sharp's futuristic Health Care Support Chair - a proactive health care solution #DigInfo - Video

Blues sets light on health care exchange

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The new health care exchange set up under the federal Affordable Care Act is worth a look for North Dakotans eligible to apply, according to representatives of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota.

BCBSND, North Dakota's largest health insurer, sponsored a workshop in Minot Wednesday to explain the exchange and the plans that it has available there. Other companies offering plans on the exchange are Sanford and Medica. Sanford has been in North Dakota's insurance market since 2010 and Medica since 2008.

The exchange opened for applications Oct. 1.

Wednesday's workshop was geared toward people curious about individual coverage. People with access to employer-sponsored plansalthough they can drop those plans in favor of the exchange are not eligible for government subsidies through the exchange unless the cost of a single policy at their jobs eats up more than 9.5 percent of their incomes. People eligible for Medicaid or Medicare also would remain on those programs and would not use the exchange.

For many people, though, there's a chance for advance tax credits and government cost sharing to reduce both premiums and medical expenses. It all depends on family size and income, said J.D. Nichol, manager of consumer sales for BCBSND.

Price quotes vary because premiums change with age and factors such as whether someone is a smoker. However, BCBSND presented a scenario for one of its upper level plans in which a couple with four children and an income of $43,900 paid a monthly premium of $119 after the advanced tax credits. The same family would pay $529 with an income of $78,975 or $1,000 with an income of about $126,000 after the advanced tax credit. Without tax credits, the cost would have been $1,028.

Nichol explained that the tax credits are available to people with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that income limit is $94,200.

People get the credits in advance to reduce their monthly premiums. Once they complete their tax forms and their actual adjusted gross incomes are known, they may get additional money or may have to pay back, depending on how their actual incomes compared with their estimates.

Nichol added that people will get at least one opportunity to update their estimated incomes during the year.

The cost-sharing assistance is available to people at 250 percent of federal poverty level, or 300 percent if Native American.

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Blues sets light on health care exchange

Health Care and Productivity

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Arguably, the United States has the highest share of world-class hospitals. Ask health care professionals about the best hospitals in the world and you will hear names such as John Hopkins, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School and the Cleveland Clinic.

With $800 billion spent annually on U.S. hospitals, the United States has the best-funded hospital infrastructure in the world.

Why, then, does the United States only manage to have the same life expectancy as Cuba, an economically underdeveloped nation? Is the U.S. health care system doing its job right? To put the question more broadly, how can we judge the performance of a health care system?

Health care systems have one primary purpose to keep people healthy and to do this cost-effectively. In 1996, McKinsey introduced a metric called health care productivity to quantify this.

This metric measures the reduction of disease burden achieved for every dollar spent in health care. Simply put, a good health care system will have a high level of health care productivity.

Stunningly, among the 34 OECD member countries, the United States has the lowest health care productivity. At first glance, this could lead one to conclude that the U.S. health care system is a total failure.

But if we measure productivity by disease condition, a slightly different and more nuanced picture emerges. The United States has the highest productivity in the world for managing breast cancer, but the lowest productivity in diabetes!

We see this duality in almost all high-income countries. Switzerland is the most productive country in the world for treating strokes, while being very poor at breast cancer. Canada is most productive in managing high blood pressure, but very poor in schizophrenia. The UK is world leader in managing diabetes, but does a poor job at handling asthma.

I am not arguing that the United States health care system does not have systemic issues. Issues such as defensive medicine (in response to a highly litigious legal environment) and lack of care coordination are well recognized.

In fact, all health care systems around the world have systemic issues. The point here is that, even within these constraints, they can do well in managing some diseases. The question then becomes, why do some countries succeed, while others do not?

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Health Care and Productivity

Historically Low Health Care Price Inflation Holds Health Spending Growth to 3.8% in August

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ANN ARBOR, Mich.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

National health care prices in August 2013 were 1.0% higher than in August 2012, down one-tenth from the July 2013 level and equal to the May 2013 rate, which was the all-time low in our series that extends back to January 1990. The 12-month moving average, at 1.5%, is a new low for our data. Hospital price growth fell to 1.5%, its lowest rate since 1.3% in December 1998, while physician prices grew a scant 0.3%. Hospital price growth plays a dominant role in the total index via its spending weight, and its low August reading was complemented by a decline in home health prices (-0.2%) and durable medical equipment (-0.1%), plus moderate growth otherwise.

National health expenditures (NHE) in August 2013 grew 3.8% over those of August 2012 and kept the annualized growth rate at 3.8% for 2013 to date. The health spending share of GDP was 17.4% in July 2013, the same as at the conclusion of the Great Recession in June 2009. (This is well below the 18% share that has been previously reported over the past few years and is strictly due to a change in GDP accounting that occurred in July 2013.)

These data come from the monthly Health Sector Economic IndicatorsSM (HSEI) briefs released by Altarum Institutes Center for Sustainable Health Spending (www.altarum.org/HealthIndicators). Due to the federal government closure, labor data for September, scheduled for October 4 release, were not reported. (When new labor data are ready, we will issue an updated HSEI Labor Brief.)

Health care prices have been growing more slowly than prices in the rest of the economy for 4 consecutive months, said Charles Roehrig, director of the center. If this continues for the rest of 2013, we may find that spending growth for 2013 has dropped below the record low 3.9% growth experienced since 2009.

Altarum Institute (www.altarum.org) integrates objective research and client-centered consulting skills to deliver comprehensive, systems-based solutions that improve health and health care. Altarum employs more than 400 individuals and is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with additional offices in the Washington, D.C., area; Portland, Maine; and San Antonio, Texas.

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Historically Low Health Care Price Inflation Holds Health Spending Growth to 3.8% in August

Novel gene therapy enables persistent anti-tumor immune response

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Public release date: 9-Oct-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Vicki Cohn vcohn@liebertpub.com 914-740-2100 x2156 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

New Rochelle, NY, October 9, 2013Cancer immunotherapy can successfully use the body's own immune system to kill tumor cells. But some current approaches to stimulate an antitumor immune response are short-lived, with limited clinical effectiveness. A new gene transfer strategy that introduces modified, immune-stimulating human stem cells is both feasible and effective for achieving persistent immunotherapy to treat leukemias and lymophomas, according to a study published in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Human Gene Therapy website.

Satiro Nakamura De Oliveira and coauthors from the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, describe the gene transfer method they developed to deliver chimeric antigen receptors, or CARS, that direct the immune system to target tumor cells derived from B-lymphocytes.

In the article "Modification of Hematopoietic Stem/Progenitor Cells with CD19-specific Chimeric Antigen Receptors as a Novel Approach for Cancer Immunotherapy" the authors show that by packaging the CARS in human hematopoietic stem cells, the immunotherapeutic receptors will be produced in the bloodstream for a long period of time. This persistent expression should improve their effectiveness in the treatment of blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma.

"This study represents an interesting new direction for an approach that has generated substantial interest," says Dr. Wilson, Director of the Gene Therapy Program, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia.

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About the Journal

Human Gene Therapy, the official journal of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy, British Society for Gene and Cell Therapy, French Society of Cell and Gene Therapy, German Society of Gene Therapy, and five other gene therapy societies, is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly in print and online. Human Gene Therapy presents reports on the transfer and expression of genes in mammals, including humans. Related topics include improvements in vector development, delivery systems, and animal models, particularly in the areas of cancer, heart disease, viral disease, genetic disease, and neurological disease, as well as ethical, legal, and regulatory issues related to the gene transfer in humans. Its sister journal, Human Gene Therapy Methods, published bimonthly, focuses on the application of gene therapy to product testing and development, and Human Gene Therapy Clinical Development, new in 2013, publishes data relevant to the regulatory review and commercial development of cell and gene therapy products. Complete tables of content for all three publications and a free sample issue may be viewed on the Human Gene Therapy website.

About the Publisher

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Novel gene therapy enables persistent anti-tumor immune response

UPDATE! One World Trade Center / Freedom Tower 10/4/2013 construction progress part 5 – Video

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UPDATE! One World Trade Center / Freedom Tower 10/4/2013 construction progress part 5
Here I continue walking though Brooklyn Bridge Park to the end of the walkway at the pier still looking at One World Trade Center and Four World Trade Center...

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UPDATE! One World Trade Center / Freedom Tower 10/4/2013 construction progress part 5 - Video