Government to Pay Nearly Half of Health Tab by 2014

The Los Angeles Time (via Yahoo) ^ | February 24, 2005 | Joel Havemann and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

WASHINGTON — The introduction of the Medicare prescription drug benefit means that soon the government will be picking up almost half of the nation's healthcare costs, a report released Wednesday shows.

At the same time, private-sector spending on healthcare also will increase, according to economists and actuaries for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Writing in the online edition of the journal Health Affairs, the federal agency's economists and actuaries predicted that the continuing increases in public and private healthcare spending would lead to "heightened pressure to find ways to slow cost growth without compromising quality of access."

The study measured the projected effect of last year's Medicare overhaul — including the new prescription drug benefit — on healthcare spending between 2004 and 2014. Unlike other industrialized democracies, whose healthcare programs cover all citizens and are highly subsidized by their governments, the United States is the only large nation in which private payments exceed government spending on medical care.

But that may change. By 2014, the authors said, government would account for 49.5% of the nation's health spending.

[mlmr]

NO they wont. There will be a revolt before that happens.