Dental spending increased to $95.2 billion in 2007
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Posted Jan. 12, 2009 |
By Craig Palmer Baltimore—Dental spending increased from $90.5 billion in 2006 to $95.2 billion in 2007 but at a more modest pace than other health care spending, government actuaries said in the latest annual report on national health care expenditures.
The 5.2 percent dental growth rate trailed the 6.1 percent rate for all health care spending, said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of the Actuary. Total health care spending grew at its lowest rate in nearly a decade but officials said the slowing growth rate may be short-lived. Government analysts briefed the media at a news conference at the National Press Club in the nation's capital, and the report appears in the January-February 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs  .
"Are we glad it's the lowest since 1998?" Rick Foster, CMS chief actuary, asked rhetorically. "It's still 6.1 percent. I wouldn't expect the 6.1 to stay that low. I wouldn't expect the good news to continue." CMS is working on a report on health spending projections as a follow-up to the Jan. 6 report on actual expenditures for 2007.
The $2.2 trillion total health care expenditure in 2007 amounted to $7,421 per person. The per person dental expenditure was $315.
The 2006 total of $90.5 represents a revision from previously reported data, updated per data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Service Annual Survey.
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