Health Care Spending Bounces Back, but Still Falls 1% Year Over Year
Although health care utilization started to rebound toward the end of 2020, spending on health care services was down by 1.0% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to a recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Among health care facilities, outpatient care centers and physicians’ offices saw drops in revenue year-to-date, while revenue for laboratories and nursing homes went up. The analysis also compared health spending in the quarter before, the quarter of and the four quarters following the beginning of economic recessions, and found that the COVID-19 recession is the first of the past five during which health spending has decreased year over year.