One Frontiers in Health Affairs article author Johnson & Dillerman (2022) Last week using the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) post State Health Expenditure Accounts (SHEA) data.One Research in the past These data were reviewed for 2014, but a recent publication updated this analysis to 2019. The authors first use per capita health expenditure normalized by age and sex, adjusted for inflation and regional price parity using Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data). They then apply a regression-based approach to control for per capita income, population density, State differences in behavioral health risk and timing, which the authors define as the annual increase in health care spending across all states.
Using this method, they found:
…almost half of the variation in state health care spending is explained by income and regional prices.Together with time, health risks (physical activity and smoking prevalence), population density, age and sex, these two factors explained more than 75% of the variance
In other words, 23 percent of the variance in health care spending between states remains unexplained.
The authors also examine how the expansion of Medicaid eligibility implemented under the Affordable Care Act affects spending. The authors found that:
…Increase [Medicaid] Income eligibility thresholds for children and adults were significantly associated with higher total medical spending, but higher eligibility thresholds for pregnant women were associated with lower total spending…with non-expanding status.
read more here.
