According to a new study in Health Affairs, national spending on health care will double by 2017 to $4.3 trillion, assuming health spending continues to increase annually by 6.7 percent. As a result, estimates place per capita health spending in 2017 at $13,101, up from $7,026 in 2006. Because the study's authors project increases in health spending to outpace national economic growth, they suggest that by 2017, health costs will total 19.5 percent of the GDP.
Although the study's authors estimate increases in all areas of health spending, they project that the largest growth will occur in Medicare and other federal programs as baby boomers get older and move from private insurance to Medicare. Medicare alone, with a projected price tag of $844 billion, will account for one fifth of health spending by 2017, while the government's total share of health spending will increase to $2 trillion. Prescription costs are also expected to rise quickly from $761 per person in 2007 to $1,537 per person in 2017. The study's authors see out-of-pocket spending increasing to $464.3 billion in 2017, up from $269.3 billion in 2007.