Posted on 12/08/2019 4:08:53 PM PST by karpov
More Americans are going without health coverage and the pace of spending on health care nationally is rising in part because of an Affordable Care Act tax on insurers, Trump administration officials said Thursday.
A federal report from actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services documented trends that are likely to further fuel the battle between Republicans and Democrats over how to slow health-care spending growth that has already put the U.S. far ahead of most comparable wealthy countries.
Overall, national health-care spending rose to $3.65 trillion in 2018, up 4.6% from 2017. The U.S. spent $11,172 per person, and national health-care spending accounted for 17.7% of the economy last year, compared with 17.9% in 2017.
The data indicate some notable shifts related to changes in insurance coverage, the price of drugs and legislative actions.
Retail prescription drug prices declined by 1% in 2018, the first drop since 1973. The decrease reflects a decline in generic drug prices and relatively slow growth in prices for brand-name drugs, officials said. President Trump has angered Democrats by taking credit for prescription-drug prices he says are falling, and the data may fuel further scrutiny over the effectiveness of administrative policies to spur greater use of generics.
The number of people without insurance rose by 1 million in 2018 for the second consecutive year, with 30.7 million individuals uninsured. Democrats have criticized Mr. Trump for his efforts—including ending billions of dollars in payments to insurers and expanding health plans that are cheaper but don’t provide the health law’s consumer protections—to roll back the 2010 Obama-era health law that expanded coverage to an estimated 20 million people.
While the overall acceleration in national health-care spending wasn’t that large relative to other years, an Affordable Care Act tax accounts for most of the increase
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
So, 0bamaCare is working according to plan!
2020 is going to be an epic beatdown. The rest of this comment will remain unposted. :^)
Yeah, but Hillary isn’t there to fix it with universal health care.
She can’t even fix an election anymore! lol
0-bomb-a-Care!
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