Facts & Resources

According to a recent report based on the National Health Interview Survey, almost 13 million young adults, or one third of those between the ages of 20-29 years, did not have health insurance in 2008. A copy of this report may be viewed here (link to report) and a fact sheet related to young adults and health reform may be viewed here.

In advance of Thursday’s bipartisan health care summit, researchers with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have developed a new, market-based model for health care reform. This proposal is based on what the authors term “realistic priorities for reform” and include such recommendations as lifting the ban on interstate insurance purchases and reforms to medical liability and malpractice regulations. To read more about this report, or to download a copy, click here.

Last year despite the recession, national health care spending hit $2.5 trillion, a 5.7 percent jump from 2008, according to projections by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Increased health spending and decreased GDP combined to increase health care's share of the economy by 1.1 percent – the biggest one-year jump since the government began tracking the numbers in 1960. According to CMS economists writing in the journal, Health Affairs. Health expenditures are estimated to have consumed 17.3 percent of GDP last year. As growing unemployment caused forced  more people to rely on Medicaid, public spending grew to 8.7 percent, or $1.2 trillion. At the same time private payers increases totaling $1.3 trillion, a 3 percent increase.  Health costs now equal 17 percent of the nation’s economy.  READ THE HEALTH AFFAIRS ARTICLE: