USA, children´s health care

Children’s Health Care Spending Report: 2007—2010 link

Health care spending is growing significantly faster for children than for adults, and a new report finds that that’s largely because of price increases.

From 2007 through 2010, per capita spending for children covered by an employer-sponsored plan increased 18.6 percent to slightly more than $2,100 a year. Also during the four years, the average cost of an outpatient visit increased more than a third, as did the average cost of an emergency room visit.

“Children tend to use less expensive health care, so a bump in children’s health care spending is troubling because it could indicate that kids are getting sicker or receiving unnecessary tests or excess procedures,” HCCI Governing Board Chairman Martin Gaynor said in a prepared statement. “The data on spending for mental health and substance abuse services is particularly worrying.”