Staff Contact: Andrew Wheeler
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission released the 2021 edition of the Health Care Spending and the Medicare Program data book. The data book includes information about health care spending as compared to gross domestic product, distribution of purchasers of personal health care, Medicare spending trends and projections, spending per enrollee, utilization, hospital all-payer margin data, Medicare margin data, and much more. The following are highlights from the data book.
- Inpatient Prospective Payment System hospital aggregate all-payer operating margin was 6.5% in 2019
- Inpatient PPS hospital Medicare margin was -8.7% in 2019
- Medicare remains the largest single purchaser of personal health care at 23%
- In 2019, total health care spending made up 17.7% of the country’s GDP
- Congressional Budget Office projects Medicare spending to exceed $1 trillion by 2022
- Medicare enrollment as a percent of workers contributing to the Medicare Part A program is decreasing
- Hospital inpatient and outpatient percent of Medicare spending has decreased from 31% in 2010 to 26% in 2019