WASHINGTON, May 24 (UPI) -- The sickest one percent of the U.S. population accounts for 22 percent of total healthcare expenditures, new federal data says.
Health care spending in the United States has remained heavily concentrated in a small portion of the total population, according to research by the Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality based on Medical Expenditure Panel Survey from 2002 and 2003. In addition, more of these individuals remained in the highest-cost groups from one year to the next.
One percent of the population accounted for 22 percent of total health care expenditures in 2002. In other words, one percent of a total civilian non-institutionalized population of 288 million accounted for $180.8 billion in healthcare spending, out of a total $810.7 billion spent on doctors, hospitals, prescription drugs and other personal health care services.
Though the concentration of costs among the sickest individuals is less than was found in 1996, when the top one percent accounted for 28 percent of all expenditures, more than a quarter of those in the top percentile in 2002 remained there in 2003.
This reflects a near doubling of the proportion of persons who remain in the top percentile from one year to the next, compared with 1996-1997.
The top five percent of the population accounted for 49 percent of health care expenditures in 2002 and the top 10 percent accounted for 64 percent of overall health care spending.
At the other end of the spectrum, the lower half of the population, some 144 million people, accounted for only 3 percent of overall health care spending -- $27.6 billion out of the $810.7 billion total.
