US health spending estimated at $2,500 billion and 17.3% of GDP In 2009

In the wake of apparently stalled American health care reform, according to annual government projections released yesterday, US health care spending is expected to have reached $2,500 billion in 2009 - an estimated 5.7% increase since 2008, despite a projected decline in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the same period.

Moreover, according to figures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published in the journal Health Services, health-care spending in the U.S. will almost double in 2019 to $4,500 billion, or more than 19% of the economy, as unemployment and aging baby boomers drive up government costs, economists forecast. As a result, health care's share of the economy grew 1.1 percentage points in 2009, to a projected 17.3%, representing the largest one-year increase in GDP share since the federal government began keeping track in 1960.

The 11-year health care spending projections, prepared annually by economists at the CMS, reflect the substantial influence of the economic recession on both public and private health care spending as more Americans lose their private health insurance and as federal and state governments face projected increases in Medicaid enrollment and spending.