Growth in US health spending remained slow in 2010; health share of gross domestic product was unchanged from 2009

Abstract

Medical goods and services are generally viewed as necessities. Even so, the latest recession had a dramatic effect on their utilization. US health spending grew more slowly in 2009 and 2010-at rates of 3.8 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively-than in any other years during the fifty-one-year history of the National Health Expenditure Accounts. In 2010 extraordinarily slow growth in the use and intensity of services led to slower growth in spending for personal health care. The rates of growth in overall US gross domestic product (GDP) and in health spending began to converge in 2010. As a result, the health spending share of GDP stabilized at 17.9 percent.