CMS Releases 1991-2014 Health Care Spending by State

June 2017 ~

CMS’ Office of the Actuary (OACT) has released its State Health Expenditure Accounts detailing state-level health care spending data for the period 1991-2014. The data reveals large differences of personal healthcare spending from region to region as well as growth in spending in non-expansion states that show similar rates in Medicaid expansion states.

The OACT’s data report shows that while most states experienced faster growth in 2014 due to Medicaid expansion and enrollment in Exchange plans, per capita health spending in Medicaid expansion and non-expansion states grew at 4.4% and 4.5% respectively.

The report states the similar growth in expansion and non-expansion states is likely due to an increase in the number of insured consumers in expansion states and faster growth in spending per insured person in non-expansion states.

“Over this period, clear state-specific impacts can be observed with regard to amounts of spending by payer and rates of spending growth because of economic and health-sector factors,” the authors concluded.  “Still, the variation in overall health care spending by state, measured as the ratio between maximum and minimum per capita health spending levels, remained virtually unchanged during these years. As a result, there was minimal movement in the relative rankings of overall per capita health spending by state.”

The report also found that the most recent economic recession, which ended in 2009, had a sustained impact on health spending and health insurance coverage. Every state experienced slower growth in per capita personal health care spending from 2010-2013 at a rate of 2.8% versus the 5.2% experienced during 2004-2009.

“Recent economic and health sector factors have had clear impacts by state, both by payer and in the rates of overall per capita personal healthcare expenditure growth,” notes the report’s lead author David Lassman, “however, during the 2009 to 2014 period, the variation in spending between the lowest and highest states was virtually unchanged.”

Source(s): CMS; HealthAffairs; HealthcareFinance News; Healthcare for New England; Kaiser Family Foundation;