WASHINGTON: US health care spending soared to $4.1 trillion last year as Congress opened the stigma of the federal dollar to fight the coronavirus pandemic on multiple fronts.
A government report on Wednesday said national health spending rose 9.7% in 2020, more than double the normal growth rate, with health care accounting for nearly $1 out of every $5 in the economy. The federal government’s share in health spending increased by 36%.
In one twist, this increase was driven not by dedicated care to patients, but by federal subsidies to keep hospitals and medical providers solvent; funding to develop and implement COVID tests, vaccines, treatments and countermeasures; and aid to state Medicaid programs facing a potential wave of uninsured people in public health crises.
The report, from Number Crunchers at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the story that unfolded in 2020 and continues to this day is unlike anything that happened in the past 100 years. Published online by the journal Health Affairs, the report is an annual benchmark measuring the impact of health care in the economy.
Last year, as elective surgeries canceled and telehealth replaced office visits, Congress approved tens of billions of dollars of bipartisan measures to keep the private health care system from collapsing.
With COVID countermeasures and direct federal spending on Medicaid money for states, the strategy largely worked, said economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and longtime policy adviser to Republicans.
Holtz-Eakin said COVID cases kept hospitals from keeping their normal book of business. The bailout money from the federal government was really important when other sources just dried up.” The $122 billion Provider Relief Fund, through which hospitals could apply for taxpayer money to compensate for their losses, was the linchpin.
When I look at 2020, it wasn’t perfect, but I think Congress deserves high marks for what it did, Holtz-Eakin said.
The $4.1 trillion tab for 2020 represents an increase of nearly $365 billion from national health spending in 2019. This works out to $12,530 per person.
Among other highlights, the report found:
The number of uninsured people losing jobs was unlikely but remained fairly stable at around 30 million. This confirms earlier reports of the Census Bureau. However, coverage changed, with fewer people being covered through the workplace and more people getting their health care through the Medicaid and Affordable Care Act Marketplace.
Medicare rolls grew more slowly in the first year of the pandemic, but this was because people were dying. The report said that the pandemic has led to an increase in the death rate in the population aged 65 and above. Seniors accounted for 14% of COVID cases, but 80% of deaths.
Increased federal Medicaid funding helped ease the financial burden of the pandemic on state and local governments. State and local level financed health care spending decreased by about 3% in 2020. The federal share of Medicaid spending in 2020 was about 69%, the highest percentage in more than 50 years of the program.
Health care spending by individuals declined by 3.7%, a rare occurrence. This was largely due to deferred surgeries, dental care, and diagnostic procedures such as colonoscopies. Employers who finance health insurance coverage for their employees also spent less.
The bipartisan federal relief effort in 2020 was crucial to bolstering the US health system and helping millions of people stay uninsured during a national public health emergency, data provide hard evidence, said health economist Sarah Collins of the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund. That said, expand reach that works. This is the full story of a massive bipartisan federal relief effort that worked.
But this year Americans are politically polarized over vaccine mandates and mask requirements, and COVID-19 is likely to have a continued impact on US health care spending.
The report said that widespread vaccination efforts that began in the spring of 2021 and the emergence of the delta variant in the summer are likely to have notable impacts. Uncertainty remains about how the pandemic might develop given the emergence of the Omicron type during the winter months.
Disclaimer: This post has been self-published from the agency feed without modification and has not been reviewed by an editor
read all breaking news, today’s fresh news And coronavirus news Here.