Technological Change & the Growth of Health Care Spending

This book explores health care in the United States which has been growing faster than the economy for many years, representing a challenge not only for the government’s two major health insurance programs - Medicare and Medicaid - but also for the private sector. As health care spending consumes a greater and greater share of the nation’s economic output in the future, Americans will be faced with increasingly difficult choices between health care and other priorities. This book presents CBO’s projections of federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid and health care spending generally over the next 75 years. Despite the substantial uncertainties surrounding projections over that long a period, particularly ones involving the growth of health care costs, such as horizon is useful for illustrating the long-term fiscal challenges that this country faces. This is an edited, excerpted and augmented edition of a Congressional Budget Office publication.