WASHINGTON, Afghanistan, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- The cost of U.S. healthcare increased 7.5 percent in the first half of 2004 after two years of slowed growth, analysts said Thursday.
The rate equals that of 2003, according to a study released by the non-profit and non-partisan Center for Studying Health System Change and the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Healthcare spending growth peaked in 2001 at 10 percent.
Researchers said, however, the latest figure remains well above the unusually high increase of 5.9 percent in per capita gross domestic product for the first half of this year.
"Healthcare costs are likely to continue growing faster than workers' income for the foreseeable future, leading to more uninsured Americans and raising the stakes for policy makers to initiate cost-containment policies or accept the current trend of rapidly growing health costs and shrinking health coverage," said co-author Paul B. Ginsburg of HSC.
Prescription drugs cost, often blamed for rising healthcare costs, actually are slowing, at 8.8 percent for the first half of 2004, compared to 9.6 percent increase in the second half of 2003. That is less than half the 19.5 percent rate logged in the second half of 1999.
