In this photo taken September 1, 2010, Douglas Holtz-Eakin speaks on Capitol Hill Washington. Obama’s health care law strengthened the drug benefit by gradually eliminating a coverage gap known as the “doughnut hole”.
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Over the next 10 years, the effects of the ACA, the growing economy and the aging population will spur a long-term health spending growth rate of 5.8 percent annually from 2014 to 2024, as indicated by the report.
The forecast, through 2024, does not project a return to pre-recession days of rising health care inflation, as the government and private employers try to restore the way they pay hospitals and doctors to emphasize quality over quantity.
“The main point is that the bill will continue to grow faster than the economy, which is what pays the bill”, he added.
“I do think this becomes something of a liability for anybody coming into office, and they need to have a very proactive policy to address it”, Dan Mendelson, CEO of Avalere Health, a market analysis and consulting firm, told the AP.
Joseph Antos, a health care finance expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says it’s still too early to draw any definitive conclusions.
Growth in the nation’s health care tab slowed dramatically during the 2007-2009 economic recession. The bad news is that health care spending keeps increasing steadily.
As taxpayers, Americans benefited from the slowdown, which reduced projected Medicare costs.
In 2010, when President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation was created, requirements for Medicaid eligibility were adjusted and enrollment requirements were simplified.
Medicare provides hospital and medical insurance for Americans age 65 and older.
At the same time, expensive new drugs are boosting spending on medications.
One key factor in the health care spending growth was represented by prescription drugs. Hepatitis C is a viral infection that gradually destroys the liver, afflicting about 3 million Americans.
Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income and disabled people, got off to a slower start, but now covers an estimated 69 million people, making it the largest government health program. But by 2024, it is projected to make up 19.6 percent of GDP. But the program is projected to have grown by 12 percent in 2014, again boosted by coverage expansion under the health care law. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), which allowed states to expand Medicaid, was an important milestone in addressing the gap in health care coverage.
Now: Private insurance plans increasingly are the consumer-facing side of both programs.
Commenting on the study results Sommers said that around 15.8 million adults obtained insurance coverage under Obamacare. California’s Medicaid expansion changed their lives; they no longer have to skip meals in order to afford medicine.
Other trends identified in the report are more worrisome. That is consistent with the 2014 metal tier breakdown, the state reported. Those savings are passed along to many segments of the health care system. Although minorities make up 40 percent of the U.S. population, they account for more than half of the uninsured population across the country.
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“Nothing affects spending almost as much as how much money you have to spend”, Getzen said.
