WASHINGTON - The nation's health-care bill climbed above $2 trillion in 2006, averaging a record $7,026 per person, according to a government report released today. The report is likely to intensify the debate over curbing costs and covering the nation's 47 million uninsured people.
Costs increased 6.7 percent over 2005, according to the report by Medicare's actuaries - only slightly higher than the 6.5 percent rate in 2005. But it was still well above the overall rate of inflation.
"Many people involved in health care will say, 'Hey, wait a minute, 6.7 percent ... things are moderating,' but for average people ... they don't see this as moderation," said Ron Pollack, director of Families USA, a liberal advocacy group that promotes coverage for all.
Much of those costs are incurred by the sickest patients. Some 10 percent of the population accounts for more than 60 percent of health-care costs.
Democratic and Republican presidential candidates agree on the need to curb costs, but there is little consensus on how. Democrats generally favor giving government a stronger hand, for example, by negotiating drug prices under the Medicare prescription benefit. Republicans want to foster greater competition in the health-insurance market and are divided over the role of government. Yet that role is growing - and it doesn't seem to matter whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge.
The report provides a look at the first full year of the Medicare drug benefit - proposed by President Bush and passed by a GOP Congress - and it found that the federal share of prescription costs increased significantly, while the shares paid by states, private insurance and consumers shrank.
In 2005, Medicare paid just 2 percent of the total tab for prescriptions purchased at the retail level. That share grew to 18 percent in 2006.
Federal, state and local governments already pay 47 percent of the nation's health-care costs through public programs. Under current policies, the total share would creep up to more than half the bill by 2017.
The report did not provide a final verdict on whether the Medicare prescription benefit is a good deal for taxpayers.
On the negative side, it found that the private insurance plans that provide the prescription benefit were not able to obtain discounts from drug manufacturers as deep as those that state governments got through their Medicaid programs.
On the positive side, the report found that senior citizens who previously had to buy medications at list prices are now getting discounts.
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Published by the HoustonChronicle.com
