Health expenditures, national

Estimates from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that measure calendar year spending for health care in the United States by type of service delivered (for example, hospital care, physician services, or nursing home care) and source of funding for those services (for example, private health insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or out-of-pocket spending). CMS produces both historical and projected estimates of health expenditures by category. (Also see Sources and Definitions, National Health Expenditure Accounts [NHEA]; Gross domestic product [GDP].) Types of national health expenditures are described as:

• Business, household, and other private expenditures—Outlays for services paid for by nongovernmental sources, such as consumers, private industry, and philanthropic and other nonpatient-care sources.
• Government expenditures—Outlays for services paid for by federal, state, and local government agencies, or expenditures required by governmental mandate (such as workers’ compensation insurance payments).
• Health consumption expenditures—Outlays for goods and services relating directly to patient care, plus expenses for administering health insurance programs, the net cost of health insurance, and public health activities. This category is equivalent to total national health expenditures minus expenditures for investment in noncommercial research as well as expenditures by health care establishments on structures and equipment.
• Personal health care expenditures—Outlays for goods and services relating directly to patient care. These expenditures are total national health expenditures minus expenditures for investment, health insurance program administration and the net cost of insurance, and public health activities.