MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – The 2008 recession is the main reason for the ongoing slowdown in the growth of healthcare expenditures in the United States, a new study by the Kellogg School of Management suggests.
“The slumping economy accounted for 70 percent of the [health] spending slowdown,” says the study as cited by the Wall Street Journal, referring to the time period between 2008 and 2011 when the annual growth rate for health spending shrank to 3.3 percent per year as opposed to 6.6 percent between 2000 and 2007.
According to the study, the other 30 percent of the slowdown can be attributed to changes in the US health-care system and expiring patents for expensive drugs.
The study suggests that the recovering economy could boost spending, although it does not say what contributed to the health care slowdown after 2011.
The researchers estimate that today health spending would have been 1.8 percent higher if not for the recession of 2008.
Another research paper released by the Brookings Institution on Monday also blames the two recessions of the past decade for the slowing of health spending growth.
“The relationship between GDP growth and national health spending appears to be relatively robust. It suggests that the recent decline in health spending is the result of the poor economy experienced in the 2000s, rather than to any permanent change in health spending growth,” the study concludes.
