State: Health care costs rose 2.3% in 2013
Total spending on health care in Massachusetts topped $50 billion in 2013, an increase of 2.3 percent that fell below the state's cost growth benchmark but largely reflected similar national trends in slowed spending growth rates, according to a new report.
The Center for Health Information Analysis (CHIA), a state agency created by the 2012 health care cost containment law, planned on Tuesday morning to release its initial analysis of total health care expenditures in Massachusetts. The report found that public spending on health care for Medicare and Medicaid made up 60 percent of the state's total spending on health care, while the average per capita cost of health care totaled $7,550 per resident.
While spending growth came in below the 3.6 percent growth benchmark outlined in the 2012 law, total expenditures still grew faster than the 1.5 percent inflation rate and costs remain among the highest in the country, according to CHIA.
The report also showed that premiums and member cost-sharing vary "substantially" between groups and the adoption of alternative payment methods to the traditional fee-for-service model "stalled in 2013 among payers and providers."
The state's largest insurer - Blue Cross Blue Shield - and its largest physician group - Partners Community HealthCare - posted the largest spending increases reported by CHIA.
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