Price hike responsible for increased health care spending in the U.S.

A new study found that increase in the prices of health care services is one of the many reasons why spending on health services has increased by 1 trillion USD in the past few years in the U.S.

According to the study author, Joseph Dieleman, the population of the U.S is growing as well as aging. Most of the increase in spending is due to factors like increase in price, utilization and intensity. Dieleman said that increasing population size has increased the health care spending by nearly 23%.

Aging population contributes to 12% increase in the total spending. Hike in price and service intensity led to increase in spending by around 50%.

In the period of 1996 to 2003, the U.S. health care spending on outpatient care rose by 85% because of increase in the use of services. Inpatient care spending increased by 59% due to increase in price and service intensity.

The study was funded by Peterson Center on Healthcare and was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Increase in health care spending is governed more by the price of health care services than by the age or size of the population.

According to the director of Peterson Center on Healthcare, people deserve good quality of health care at reasonable prices.