{"id":688,"date":"2009-01-11T15:33:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-11T19:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=688"},"modified":"2009-01-11T15:33:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-11T19:33:00","slug":"american-health-care-since-1994-the-unacceptable-status-quo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=688","title":{"rendered":"American Health Care Since 1994: The Unacceptable Status Quo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanprogress.org\/issues\/2009\/01\/health_since_1994.html\">American Health Care Since 1994: The Unacceptable Status Quo<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Higher medical costs are also taking a toll on America&#8217;s fiscal health. As the CBO has warned, &#8216;the rate at which health care spending grows relative to the economy is the most important determinant of the country&#8217;s long-term fiscal balance.&#8217; Federal health care expenditures, including Medicare and Medicaid, have risen to over $800 billion, or $2,650 per person, in 2008, from $300 billion, or $1,600 per person, in 1994 (in constant 2008 dollars). The burden on states has increased as well, to $300 billion in health care costs in 2008, from $190 billion in 1994 (including each state&#8217;s share of the Medicaid program). These trends are projected to speed up, with per-person federal expenditure nearing $6,000 by 2017 and state and local expenditures projected to increase to $2,000 per-person (in 2008 dollars) over the same period.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While some of this increase is attributable to population growth, an aging population, and changes to the policy structures of Medicare and Medicaid (including an expansion of the State Children&#8217;s Health Insurance Program), much of it comes from the underlying inefficiencies and excess costs of the American health care system.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>American Health Care Since 1994: The Unacceptable Status Quo: &#8220;Higher medical costs are also taking a toll on America&#8217;s fiscal health. As the CBO has warned, &#8216;the rate at which &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=688\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;American Health Care Since 1994: The Unacceptable Status Quo&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-financial-costs"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}