The Two Health Care Cost Crises

The cost of health care isn’t a single problem, it’s a multi-dimensional one. There’s national health spending, consumer out-of-pocket costs, federal health spending (mostly for Medicare and Medicaid), state health spending (mostly Medicaid), employer premiums, and the cost problem currently in vogue—getting better “value” for the health care dollar. Two health cost problems stand out as legitimate health policy crises: Affordability, especially for people who are sick and need a lot of health care; and national health spending (the subject of the CMS annual report).