December 18, 2024 US healthcare spending continues to grow. According to an article in the journal Health Affairs (Anne B. Martin, Micah Hartman, Benjamin Washington, Aaron Catlin, and The National Health Expenditure Accounts Team, National Health Expenditures In 2023: Faster Growth As Insurance Coverage And Utilization Increased, Health Affairs (2024), doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2024.01375):"National health care spending reached $4.9 trillion in 2023 (or $14,570 per person), increasing 7.5 percent from 2022 (exhibit 1). This rate of growth was faster than in 2021 and 2022, when health care spending increased 4.2 percent and 4.6 percent, respectively. The lower growth during 2021 and 2022 was affected by the expiration of temporary federal funding…
Support Grows for Government-Run Health System
Gallup recently released results from its annual Health and Healthcare Poll, which are based on telephone interviews conducted November 6-20, 2024 with a random sample of 1,001 adults living in the US. The new data show that support for the US adopting a government-run healthcare system is growing.According to Gallup (Jeffrey M. Jones, "More in U.S. See Health Coverage as Government Responsibility," Gallup, Dec. 9, 2024):"Americans divide about evenly on this question, with 46% saying the U.S. should have a government-run healthcare system, while 49% are in favor of a system based mostly on private health insurance. Only in a…
Nearly One Fourth of Working Age Adults Underinsured, New Report Shows
November 22, 2024 The Commonwealth Fund on November 21, 2024 released a new report on insurance coverage in the US. According to The State of Health Insurance Coverage in the U.S.:"• More than half (56%) of U.S. working-age adults were insured all year with coverage adequate to ensure affordable access to care. But there are soft spots requiring policy attention: 9 percent of adults were uninsured, 12 percent had a gap in coverage over the past year, and 23 percent were underinsured, meaning they had coverage for a full year that didn’t provide them with affordable access to heath care."•…
World Health Systems Facts is @HealthSystemsFacts.bsky.social
November 14, 2024 World Health Systems Facts now has an account on the social media platform BlueSky, we're @HealthSystemsFacts.bsky.social. Give us a follow! Health System OverviewHealth System RankingsHealth System OutcomesHealth ExpendituresHealth System FinancingCoverage and AccessCosts for ConsumersHealth System Resources and UtilizationPreventive Healthcare Healthcare WorkersHealthcare Workforce Education and TrainingLong-Term Services and SupportsHealth Information and Communications TechnologiesPharmaceuticalsPeople With DisabilitiesAgingSocial Determinants and Health Equity Political SystemEconomic SystemPopulation DemographicsAffordable Care ActMedicaidMedicareVeterans Health AdministrationVarious US Health System ProposalsHealth System HistoryReforms and Challenges World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health…
Nonprofit Hospitals and Charity Care
November 7, 2024 Two new reports throw light on the level of charity care actually provided by nonprofit hospitals in the US.As noted in US Nonprofit Hospitals Have Widely Varying Criteria To Decide Who Qualifies For Free And Discounted Charity Care (Luke Messac, Alexander T. Janke, Lisa Herrup Rogers, Imani Fonfield, Jared Walker, Elijah Rushbanks, Nora V. Becker, and Ge Bai, US Nonprofit Hospitals Have Widely Varying Criteria To Decide Who Qualifies For Free And Discounted Charity Care, Health Affairs 2024 43:11, 1569-1577): "Hospital charity care is the provision of free or discounted services to low-income patients.5 Historically, a large part of the justification for nonprofit hospitals’ tax-exempt status rests on…
Doximity Releases 2024 Physician Compensation Report
October 16, 2024 The physician networking, communications, and staffing company Doximity has released its 2024 Physician Compensation Report.According to Doximity, "Doximity found that after several years of modest or declining growth, the average pay for doctors increased nearly 6% in 2023, rebounding from a decline of 2.4% in 2022."The report noted that "In 2023, the gender pay gap for physicians decreased to 23%, marking a slight improvement from the 26% reported in 2022. Despite this progress, the pay gap remains significant, with women physicians earning nearly $102,000 less than men physicians, on average, after controlling for specialty, location, and years…
Commonwealth Fund Releases Newest Installment of its Mirror Mirror Series of National Health System Comparisons
September 21, 2024 The Commonwealth Fund has released the newest installment of its Mirror Mirror series, which compares various national health systems with the US.According to Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System:"Key Findings: The top three countries are Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, although differences in overall performance between most countries are relatively small. The only clear outlier is the U.S., where health system performance is dramatically lower."Conclusion: The U.S. continues to be in a class by itself in the underperformance of its health care sector. While the other nine countries differ in…
Baker Institute Report Examines Hospital Prices, Costs, and Profits
Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy has issued a new report on hospital finances. The report, entitled Prices Versus Costs: Unpacking Rising US Hospital Profits, compares "the commercial operating costs, net patient revenue from commercial patients, and commercial operating profits of hospitals with different price levels to examine if higher prices are charged to cover higher costs, or instead to generate higher profits."They concluded:"We find that belonging to the highest inpatient price quartile is associated with 17% higher costs per adjusted discharge and 36% higher commercial revenue per adjusted discharge. These differences result in a 69% higher commercial operating…
Healthcare in the US Becoming Less Affordable
July 23, 2024 The ability of Americans to access affordable healthcare has declined in recent years, according to a new report by Gallup and the nonprofit West Health.According to the report, entitled Tracking Healthcare Affordability and Value: The West Health-Gallup Healthcare Affordability Index and Healthcare Value Index:"Cost security among U.S. adults has dipped to its lowest level in 2024, down six points since 2022 to just 55%. This decline is driven primarily by adults aged 50 to 64 (down eight points to 55%) and 65 and older (down eight points to 71%). Younger adults under the age of 50, after…
NY Times Investigative Series on Pharmacy Benefit Managers and High Prescription Drug Costs
June 21, 2024 The New York Times has begun a new series about how pharmacy benefit managers prioritize their own interests at the expense of patients, employers, and the public. Part one, entitled "The Opaque Industry Secretly Inflating Prices for Prescription Drugs," was published June 21, 2024. According to the Times:"The three largest pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, act as middlemen overseeing prescriptions for more than 200 million Americans. They are owned by huge health care conglomerates — CVS Health, Cigna and UnitedHealth Group — and are hired by employers and governments."The job of the P.B.M.s is to reduce drug…