Healthcare is an important market for industrial gas producers and distributors in the US, and spending in this sector continues to represent a significant portion of US gross domestic product (GDP).
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) produce the official estimates of total National Healthcare Expenditures (NHE), which include spending on public and private healthcare goods and services, government administration, the net cost of health insurance, research and development, and investment related to healthcare. CMS reports that, in 2015, NHE grew 5.8%, to $3.2 trillion, or $9,990 per person, and accounted for 17.8% of GDP. As more seniors become eligible for Medicare, and as Medicaid benefits expand under the Affordable Care Act, CMS projects that healthcare spending in the US will grow 5.4% in 2017 and 5.9% for 2018-2019.
Intelligas Consulting (intelligasconsulting.com), a firm that focuses on the industrial gas markets, finds that US healthcare expenditures as a percent of real GDP is now a little over 20% and estimates that the figure will reach 20.7% by the end of 2017 (Table 1).
... to continue reading you must be subscribed
