The Persistence in the Level of Health Expenditures over Time: Estimates for the U.S. Population, 2004-2005

Estimates of the health care expenses of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized (community) population are critical to policymakers and others concerned with access to medical care and the cost and sources of payment for that care. In 2005, health care expenses among the U.S. community population totaled $1.024 trillion. Medical care expenses, however, are highly concentrated among a relatively small proportion of individuals in the community population. As previously reported in 1996, the top 1 percent of the U.S. population accounted for 28 percent of the total health care expenditures and the top 5 percent for over half. More recent data have revealed that over time there has been some decrease in the extent of this concentration at the upper tail of the expenditure distribution (Yu and Ezzati-Rice, 2005).