Health costs still increasing far beyond inflation: report: economic growth cannot keep up with annual health care spending bumps.(Costs)

Publication: Medicine & Health

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Eli Research, Inc.

Americans paying for private health care have experienced a leveling-off in annual spending increases recently, but that does not necessarily bode well for the future, according to a new report from the Center for Studying Health System Change.

In "Tracking Health Care Costs: Declining Growth Trend Pauses," published June 21 as a Web-exclusive article in the journal Health Affairs, authors Bradley Strunk, Paul Ginsburg and John Cookson found that cost per privately insured American grew 8.2 percent in 2004, a virtually identical increase from 2003.

But that plateau was countered by a mere 2.6-percent increase in...

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