Among the major findings:
— Prescription drug spending shot up by 12.2 percent in 2014, driven by new medications for
hepatitis C infection, as well as treatments for cancer and
multiple sclerosis. Hepatitis C drugs contributed $11.3 billion in new spending.
— The growth in per-person health care spending was driven mainly by greater use of medical services, which outpaced increases in the price of those services. That suggests that some newly insured people got care they had previously gone without. Additionally, already-insured people may have gotten elective treatments postponed earlier during lean economic times.
— Medicare spending increased by 5.5 percent last year, the fastest rate of growth since 2009. The two biggest reasons were the rising cost of prescription drugs, and more spending for doctors' services and other outpatient care.
— Spending on Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people, jumped by 11 percent in 2014, the fastest growth in more than a decade. That was mainly driven by the health law's Medicaid expansion, which is optional for states. In some reassuring news for states, the report found that per-person spending declined due to healthier people signing up in the program. Also, the federal government picked up nearly all the new costs. [ibid]
