Jason Millman: “The United States spent $2.9 trillion on health care in 2013, or about $9,255 per person, according to a new detailed accounting of the nation’s health care dollars. The 2013 totals represent just 3.6 percent growth in national health spending from 2012 — the lowest annual growth rate since 1960, according to a federal report published in the policy journal Health Affairs.”

Jonathan Cohn: “On Wednesday, actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released their annual estimate of national health expenditures—that is, all the money that Americans spent on medical care last year, whether directly or through insurance plans and government programs like Medicare … In 2013, CMS announced, national health spending was 17.4 percent of GDP.”




“The more important news is how that fraction changed between 2013 and 2014: It didn’t change at all. In fact, because of revisions to some past years, CMS now thinks that health care spending has held steady at that same level (17.4 percent of GDP) for five years.”
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