Washington – During the next decade, the United States health-care spending will consume a greater share of the country’s economy. The spending will nearly double to around $4.3 trillion by 2017, government authorities estimated on Tuesday.

The finding comes after last month’s report which said that health care spending increased for the first time above $2.1 trillion in 2006. Health care spending accounted for 16 % of the nation’s GDP. Adding to this, the baby boomers start to come into the Medicare system, there may be a bigger shift in health care spending from the private sector to the public sector.

The report found that the U.S. healthcare spending was $2.2 trillion in 2007 and the spending will grow yearly by around 6.7 % through 2017. “Our anticipation is that increase in health expenditure is expected to be constant over the prediction, which is through next decade, at 6.7 % per annum,” said Andrea Sisko, the report co-author in a teleconference.

Sisko, an economist at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said “Along with that, we are anticipating economic growth rate to slow down to an average of 4.7 percent per year. Consequently, the combination of constant growth in health spending and slow down of economic growth will result in the health care section of gross domestic product increasing to about 20 % in 2017, closely 1/5th of the economy”.

The estimations come as increased health-care spending and absence of medical coverage for millions of US citizens has turned out to be a central issue in presidential campaign this year. It is estimated around 47 million people don’t have health insurance.

According to the report, Medicare spending is expected to reach $884 billion by 2017 which would be more than 1/5th of the total healthcare spending in the country when compared to $427 billion in 2007. Medicaid, a federal-state program, is also expanding at a greater rate than the total health spending.

The report which was published in the journal Health Affairs, expects Medicaid, the program that helps pay health expenditures for the poor and other people, to grow at an average rate of 7.9 % each year and to reach $717 billion by 2017. This will count around 17 % of U.S. health-care spending.

“The health care cost continues to be a genuine and vital concern,” said Kerry Weems Acting Administrator of CMS.

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