This is from Reuters, reporting on a U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) study:
The cost of medical care in the United States is expected to grow at a faster clip over the next decade and overall health spending growth will outpace that of the gross domestic product, a U.S. government health agency said on Wednesday.
A report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) cited the aging of the enormous baby boom generation and overall economic inflation as prime contributors to the projected increase in healthcare spending.
Overall healthcare spending will comprise 19.9 percent of the economy in 2025, up from 17.8 percent in 2015, the report forecast. The pace of growth in U.S. spending on health is expected to pick up in 2017, increasing 5.4 percent over 2016. That compares with an estimated 4.8 percent spending uptick in 2016. Spending for 2016 was estimated at $3.4 trillion.
When the final numbers are in, the growth in prescription drug spending for 2016 is expected to have slowed to 5 percent from 9 percent in 2015. However, CMS has forecast growth of 6.4 percent per year between 2017 and 2025, in part because of spending on expensive newer specialty drugs, such as for cancer and multiple sclerosis.
The projections for 2016 to 2025 were made assuming that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law widely known as Obamacare, would remain intact. It does not take into account likely changes to the law....
