Health Care Spending Spikes: Why?
You may have read that health care spending in the private sector picked up both in the fourth quarter of 2013, and during the first two months of this year. Recent data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show that during the last three months of 2013 spending on health care rose at an annual rate of 5.3% The trend continued this year, with spending climbing 6.2%, on a year-over-year basis in January, and 6.7% in February,
This came as a surprise. Since December of 2007, after adjusting for inflation, health care outlays have been rising by only 2.6% As former CBO director Peter Orszag observed in a Bloomberg column published yesterday, “the sudden jump has led some some commentators to declare an end to the era of slower health-cost increases, which has lasted for the past several years. ” Yet, Orszag notes, “Medicare spending growth is still low, even through last month. Indeed, in the first half of this fiscal year, nominal Medicare spending was only 0.6 percent higher than in the corresponding period a year earlier.”
Why have outlays risen for those under 65, but not for seniors? BEA suggests that the jump during the first two months of this year reflects the fact that, thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more Americans had comprehensive insurance that gave them access to a wide range of services.
Those who became insured in January and February are the folks who signed up at the very beginning of the enrollment period. No doubt many of them had been postponing needed care for a long time. As soon as they were covered, they began visiting doctors, scheduling elective surgeries, and filling prescriptions.
Going forward, won’t the fact that more Americans are insured mean that health care spending will continue to rise? Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report that said “No.” The ACA will cost about $1 billion less than originally projected, the CBO reported, even though we will be covering more people. This is largely because premiums on the Exchanges turned out to be lower than expected.
Spending Spike at the End of 2013 May Well Be Temporary
The uptick in January and February can be explained by pent-up demand but Americans began layout more for healthcare “well before January,” BEA points out. How does one explain the surge in private sector spending in the final quarter of 2013?
Some observers suggest that the spike in health-care spending that we saw during the last three months of 2013 may have reflected the panic that spread during the months before the ACA kicked in.. The Wall Street Journal’s ”MarketWatch” puts it this way: spending may have risen in the fourth quarter as consumers and companies prepared for the official rollout of the law on January 1. It might not last.”
This makes sense.
My guess is that many people who knew that their policies were going to be cancelled in January used that insurance during the final months of 2013 because they didn’t know: a) whether they would find new coverage in their Exchange and b) whether they would like it as well as their old policy.
Keep in mind that in the final quarter of 2013, the Exchanges were not working well. Those who needed to sign up for new coverage were anxious, and the media was stirring the pot by telling them that, in the Exchanges, out-of-pocket expenditures would be sky-high. If you were thinking about having a hip replacement, you might well decide to schedule it in October, rather than taking a chance that under your new Obamacare policy, you would have to pay down a $10,000 deductible before your insurer laid out a penny for the surgery. Many people who couldn’t get through on the Exchanges didn’t even know if they would find new coverage.
In fact average deductibles and co-pays in the Exchanges would turn out to be relatively low. Only bronze plans come with high deductibles (averaging $5,081 a year). And just 19% of Exchange shoppers wound up with Bronze plans.
Sixty-two percent picked silver, and the average Silver plan calls for a deductible of $2,905–40% lower than the average Bronze plan– and roughly $700 less than the typical deductible in the individual market pre-Obamacare. Gold and platinum plans ask for even less cost-sharing. Many offer “zero-deductible” coverage. But in the fall of 2013, relatively few people knew the facts. They only knew what they heard on Fox. .
Meanwhile Americans who had received cancellation notices were worried, not just about out-of-pocket expenses, but about losing their doctors. Reform’s opponents were warning that insurers selling policies in the Exchanges had created “narrow networks” of providers. Americans who bought new insurance might not be able to continue seeing the specialists they trusted. They might not have access to a hospital that they knew.This would be another reason to scheduled more appointments and procedures in the final quarter of 2013, while you could still use your old policy.
This also helps explain why Medicare spending did not rise in the final quarter of 2013: Medicare beneficiaries had little reason to worry about losing their doctors in 2014.
Going forward we may see another blip in healthcare spending as the newly insured receive care that they had deferred. But most of those who were anxious to see a doctor enrolled in the Exchanges in October, November and December, and began getting care in January and February. Those who signed up for insurance in during the final surge of enrollments are more likely to be young and healthy. My guess is that spending will slow next month.