The U.S. recession remained a drag on health care spending three years after it ended as a net of 9.4 million people lost private insurance coverage before key provisions of Obamacare had begun, a government report showed.
Spending on hospitals, doctors, drugs and other health care services rose 3.7% to $2.8 trillion in 2012, or about 17.2% of gross domestic product, actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a report published Monday in the journal Health Affairs. Growth was 6.3% at the end of 2007, when the U.S. entered an 18-month recession.
