Booming Medicare When Medicare was introduced in 1965, woman 65 had, on average, 18 more years of life, men, 13.5. Today, those numbers are 21 and 19 respectively. In 1980, Medicare consumed 5% of federal spending; now it’s 13.5%. Raising the Medicare age to 67 cuts Medicare spending by $148 billion, it trims government spending by just $113 billion due to increased subsidies to the elderly for Medicaid and exchange purchased insurance.
Tag Archives: healthcare spending
Doctor Doctor, Gimmie the News
In the mid-2000s, American made roughly 160 million doctor visits/year. Since ’09, that number has fallen to 140 million, and has stayed there. Thus, real US per-capita spending on healthcare has been growing at just 2.1%/year, down from 4.3%/year earlier in the decade. Why? It’s a combination of a lousy economy, higher out-of-pocket expenses, a lack of new blockbuster drugs and lower government payments to providers. Collectively, it’s good news.