CBO: Federal health spending to double over next decade

The Congressional Budget Office’s annual budget and economic outlook released this week projects that federal government spending for Medicare, Medicaid and other healthcare programs will more than double over the next decade (Source: “Government health spending seen hitting $1.8 trillion,” Reuters, Jan. 31, 2012).

According to the CBO report, total government spending on healthcare is expected to grow to $1.8 trillion by 2022, or 7.3 percent of the nation’s total economic output.

"The resulting deficits will increase federal debt to unsupportable levels," according to the report. "To prevent that outcome, policymakers will have to substantially restrain the growth of spending for those programs, raise revenues above their historical share of GDP, or pursue some combination of those two approaches."