During the last year, a compelling narrative has emerged about health care spending: Though it continues to rise each year, its rate of growth is slowing dramatically and unexpectedly. Projections show that this trend will continue during the coming decade, partially because the impact of the Great Recession has lingered.

It is unclear at this time what role President Barack Obamas health care law, the Affordable Care Act, played in the slowdown. Looking at various aspects of health spending will, however, help determine what factors can alleviate health care costs, which still grow at a faster rate than the rest of the economy and threaten the financial sustainability of government-sponsored health plans.

To analyze health cares changing role on the U.S. economy, U.S. News has created a new annual Health Care Index, which examines trends in specific health areas from 2000 to 2013.

As health care enters an unprecedented change in the way people are covered, how care is paid for and how its delivered, we want to better understand how it affects things like jobs and peoples economic well-being, says Brian Kelly, editor and chief content editor at U.S. News & World Report.

The U.S. News Health Care Index uses data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Center for Educational Statistics and the World Health Organization. Its giving us the broadest measure of health cares impact on U.S. society, says Bob Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News.

Changes to the health care system under the Affordable Care Act are not yet measured. Significant elements of the law, including mandated health insurance, Medicaid expansion and the requirement for employers to provide health insurance had not gone into effect when the data were collected. However, the health care industry anticipated some of the laws key measures and may have already implemented similar practices ahead of it. The 2013 budget sequester, which enacted automatic cuts to government spending, also is not taken into account.

For the index, U.S. News analyzed key economic factors, including expenditures, medical costs, insurance coverage, health employment, health care education and international comparisons. To be included, a specific health-related measure had to be generally published annually beginning in 2000 and had to hold enough statistical significance to provide a conclusive trend of some important aspect of the health care industry.

Like other major indices such as the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, for example, or the Consumer Price Index the U.S. News Health Care Index has a base year from which changes in the underlying factors are measured. The Health Care Indexs base year is 2000 and was set to equal 100.0; it will be calculated annually by U.S. News and measures the yearly changes in the activity of its components in relation to the year 2000.

For the 2015 Index, overall results show a steady upward trend, although a slowdown in the rate of growth attributable to the Great Recession is noted from 2009 to 2013 in which expenditures and employment, the highest-weighted components, played a significant role.

But what stand out most are trends in the rates of spending for private and public health insurance. There was a decrease in the number of Americans covered by private plans since 2000, and an overall increase in those covered by public health insurance, including Medicaid, the governments insurance plan for poor or disabled Americans, and Medicare, which covers seniors.

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U.S. News Health Care Index Shows Massive Increase in ...