At the same time, hospitals and doctors groups are increasingly combining their businesses, giving them greater power to command higher prices.
Prices are just one determinant of overall health-care spending, along with the amount and intensity of care. Health spending accounts for roughly 18 percent of overall U.S. economic activity, the highest in the developed world.
“We’re already devoting too much of our overall economic product to the health sector and not getting a great value for it,” Hughes-Cromwick, the Altarum official, said. Any increase in medical prices will further strain the budgets of governments, employers, and households that pay for it, he said.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.