RCM: Health care costs will top $8,000 per person this year, consuming an ever-bigger slice of a shrinking economic pie, says the report by the Department of Health and Human Services, due out Tuesday.
As the recession cuts into tax receipts, Medicare's giant hospital trust fund is running out of cash more rapidly, and could become insolvent as early as 2016, the report said. That's three years sooner than previously forecast.
At the same time, the government's already large share of the nation's health care bill will keep growing.
Programs such as Medicaid are expanding to take up some of the slack as more people lose job-based coverage. And baby boomers will soon start reaching 65 and signing up for Medicare. Those trends together mean that taxpayers will be responsible for more than half of the nation's health care bill by 2016 — just seven years from now.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Healthcare Will Cost $8,000 Per Person in 2009
Read about Obama's healthcare plan here.
