I Got A Fever
and the Only Prescription is More Health Care Spending
According to a report in Health Affairs, the Policy Journal of the Health Sphere, during a period from 1991-2004 New York state spent $6535 on a per capita basis for health care. The national average for spending during this same period was $5283.
The report indicates that one of the driving factors behind New York’s higher than average costs are disproportionate Medicaid payments:
Per capita personal health care spending in New York and Alaska was greatly influenced by Medicaid spending. New York’s per enrollee Medicaid spending in 2004 was $10,173, among the highest in the country. Medicaid accounted for 32 percent of total health spending in the state–nearly double the national average. High per enrollee Medicaid spending in New York is influenced by high incidence of illnesses that lead to hospital admissions and high use of both prescription drugs and long-term care services.19Alaska’s per enrollee Medicaid spending on total personal health care was the highest in the nation in 2004, at $10,417. Alaska spent the most in the nation per Medicaid enrollee on hospital, physician, and dental services (data not shown). Overall medical costs and prices may tend to be higher in Alaska because of its relative isolation, which decreases access to alternative and possibly more cost-efficient sources of care.
That’s right only Alaska, separated from the contiguous U.S. by another country, rivals New York in the inefficiency of its Medicaid delivery system.
One might put forward that the high Medicaid costs are associated with the large numbers of those enrolled in the program but a comparison with other states who also record high enrollments populations indicates otherwise:
…two states with higher-than-average proportions of their population receiving coverage in 2004 were New York and New Mexico, but New York’s Medicaid per enrollee spending was third-highest in the nation, while New Mexico’s ranked among the lowest nationwide ($4,944)–19 percent lower than the U.S. average of $6,119.
Conclusions, however, are hard to draw from this report as no one factor is identified as the cause for such widespread spending fluctuations from state to state.
