New Low in Health-Care Cost Increase

Spending on health care increased at the lowest rate in 2013 since the federal government began tracking costs in 1960. Total spending increased 3.6 percent to $2.9 trillion. “The 3.6 percent increase in 2013 is the lowest increase on record,” said Micah B. Hartman, a statistician at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service who crunched the spending numbers. He noted that spending increases have been lower over the past five years. “The next lowest increase was 3.8 percent in 2009. These rates are within the range of the recent low rates of growth in health-care spending, between 3.6 and 4.1 percent from 2009 to 2013,” Hartman said.