Medical spending in U.S. hits $2.2 trillion

Spending on medical care, even if you hardly ever go to the doctor, is now $7,421 per person, per year in the United States.

And the bulk of that total $2.2 trillion, according to the federal government's annual tally on health-care spending released Tuesday, goes for chronic and largely preventable conditions.

The actual out-of-pocket costs for care in 2007, the latest complete year of data available to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is $889 per person, or 5.3 percent higher than the cost in 2006.

Breaking the figures down by cost to actual disease is difficult, according to the CMS report, but for Utah's top chronic conditions — diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol — someone with type 2 diabetes could easily rack up $9,646 in medical costs for insulin and medications, blood-glucose testing equipment and supplies, and physician visits.

Insurance will cover much of those costs, but with unemployment increasing and, as a result, workplace-based insurance being lost for millions of Americans over the past year, the medical-care millstone around the neck of the national economy just keeps getting bigger, the figures show.

There was a silver lining in the numbers: The increase in health spending was the smallest since 1998, thanks largely to the growing use of generic drugs.

About 67 percent of medications dispensed in 2007 were generic drugs — up from 63 percent the year before. Generics can cost as little as one-third the price of brand-names.

Several factors helped drive the trend. First, insurers are steering consumers to lower-priced medicines by charging low co-payments for certain drugs. Meanwhile, they charge higher co-payments for medicines they want consumers to avoid for safety and financial reasons.

Large retailers and grocers are enticing consumers into their stores with low-priced generics.

Also, several blockbuster brand-name drugs lost their patent exclusivity in 2006, generating competition. Notable examples include Flonase, an allergy medicine; Zocor, a medicine used to lower cholesterol; and Zoloft, which is used to treat depression.

Federal officials said safety concerns also probably influenced spending on medicine as the Food and Drug Administration issued more of its most serious warnings than in previous years — 68 in 2007 versus 58 the year before and 21 in 2003.