An index following the average cost for health care is up a fourth consecutive time since the index hit its lowest annual growth rate in April, Standard & Poor says.
According to S&P's latest health care economic composite index, the average per capita cost of health care covered by commercial insurance and Medicare rose to 5.73 percent over a 12-month period that ended in August. The increase is just above the 5.69 percent index level set in July. The index hit its lowest point in April at 5.32 percent.
Health care costs covered by commercial insurance increased by 7.89 percent over the year ending August 2011, also increasing for the fourth consecutive month.
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Medicare claim costs, however, hit a new low, rising at an annual rate of 2.16 percent as measured by the index. The Medicare index recorded its highest annual growth rate of 8.02 percent in November 2009. It has consistently and sharply decelerated since then, by about 5.86 percentage points in under two years.
"As the summer of 2011 ended, we continued to observe the recent trend of a deceleration in the annual growth rates of Medicare costs and a sustained acceleration in the annual rates of commercial health care costs," says David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P indices.
The hospital and professional services indices posted increases of 5.43 percent and 5.84 percent, respectively, from their August 2010 levels.
The increasing growth rate for hospitals is primarily due to rising rates of employment and wages, Blitzer says. " Professional services wages have also seen increasing rates during 2011; however, employment trends have declined over the same period."
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