The generally prohibited practice of billing separately for individual components of a service or procedure that are normally billed under a single charge. But public health care spending is still growing faster than spending for privately funded health care. According to HCFA, public health care spending grew at a rate of 5.3 percent in 1997, one percentage point higher than the rate of growth in private health care spending. In contrast, Medicaid spending increased only 3.8 percent in 1997, the slowest growth rate in Medicaid's nearly 30-year history. HCFA attributes this low growth rate to decreases in Medicaid enrollment from 1995 to 1997 as well as reductions in per-enrollee spending.
Public programs continue to pay for an increasing percentage of all U.S. health care.
Since 1990, the proportion of health care spending from public sources has risen from 40.5 percent to 46.4 percent in 1997. Annual percentage growth in public and private health care spending. Highlights, national health expenditures, 1997. Accessed Nov. 25, 1998. National health expenditures, table 1.