​U.S. health care spending experienced historically low rates of growth in 2009 and 2010, according to the annual report of National Health Expenditures (NHE) published in the January issue of Health Affairs. 

In the report, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) said the increase in spending for 2009 represents the lowest such rate in the entire 51-year history of the NHE. 

The low rate of growth reflects people not using health care services as much as in previous years. The report notes that U.S. health care spending grew only 3.9 percent in 2010, reaching $2.6 trillion, or $8,402 per person, just 0.1 percentage point faster than in 2009.  

In 2010, as health spending growth remained low, growth in the U.S. economy as seen in gross domestic product (GDP) (4.2 percent) rebounded. As such in 2010, the health spending share of the overall economy was unchanged at 17.9 percent. In the past, the share has risen over time from 5.2 percent in 1960, the report said.

Other findings in the report show household health care spending equaled $725.5 billion in 2010 and represented 28 percent of total health spending, slightly lower than its 29 percent share in 2007. Growth in total private health insurance premiums slowed in 2010 to 2.4 percent from 2.6 percent in 2009, continuing a slowdown that began in 2003. 

Retail prescription drug spending (10 percent of total health care spending) grew only 1.2 percent to $259.1 billion in 2010, a sharp retreat from 5.1 percent growth in 2009 and the slowest rate of growth for prescription drug spending recorded in the NHE.  

Also, the federal government financed 29 percent of the nation’s health care spending in 2010, an increase of 6 percent from 2007, and reached $742.7 billion. Part of that increase came from enhanced federal matching funds for state Medicaid programs under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act, which expired in 2011. Medicare spending grew 5 percent in 2010, a deceleration from growth of 7 percent in 2009.

Medicaid spending increased 7.2 percent in 2010, slowing from 8.9 percent growth in 2009.  For more information, go to: 
http://www.cms.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/02_NationalHealthAccountsHistorical.asp#TopOfPage