Congressional Briefing - October 3, 2011
How Does Growth in Health Care Costs Affect the American Family?
Presenter: |
Art Kellermann |
Date: |
Monday, October 3, 2011 |
Time: |
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. |
Location: |
Cannon House Office Building 121 |
About the Program
Rising health care costs have a well-known negative impact on government budgets, but what is their impact on the American family? Between 1999 and 2009, U.S. health care spending nearly doubled. In 2009, while the rest of the U.S. economy plunged into recession and millions lost their jobs, health care costs grew by 4 percent, and the percentage of the nation's GDP devoted to health care reached 17.6 percent—up from 13.8 percent only ten years earlier. Although these numbers are striking, they do not easily translate into figures that are meaningful to individual Americans.
To paint an accurate picture of how health care cost growth is affecting the finances of a typical American family, RAND Health researchers examined
- the components of health care spending for the typical family
- how health care spending affects buying power
- whether slower health care cost growth would increase available family income
- whether the nation is getting sufficient value for its health care spending.
About RAND Health
RAND Health is a major research division within the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit institution headquartered in Santa Monica, California. For more than 60 years, RAND has worked to improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND Health continues that tradition, advancing understanding of health behaviors and examining how the organization and financing of care affect costs, quality, and outcomes. For more information, visit us online at www.rand.org/health.
About RAND
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND focuses on the issues that matter most, such as health, education, national security, international affairs, law and business, the environment, and more. As a nonpartisan organization, RAND operates independent of political and commercial pressures. We serve the public interest by helping lawmakers reach informed decisions on the nation's pressing challenges. Visit us online at www.rand.org.
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Further Inquiries
For further information about this event, contact the Office of Congressional Relations at ocr@rand.org or call (703) 413-1100, ext. 5395.