Sixty percent of the private insurance healthcare dollar goes toward physician and hospital services, and fourteen percent goes toward both prescription drugs and administrative costs.

Other spending includes dental services, other professional services, home healthcare, durable medical products, over-the-counter medicines and sundries, public health activities, research and construction.

Over the past five years, hospital care has been the largest spending category, representing about 30 percent of annual healthcare expenditures.

Historically, the growth rates of all NHE payment components have been higher than the growth rates of both the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and wages and salaries.

Note: CMS defines each as follows: Out-of-pocket payments includes direct spending by consumers for all healthcare goods and services, including coinsurance, deductibles and any amounts not covered by insurance. Private health insurance equals premiums earned by private health insurers, including premiums paid to BCBS, commercial insurance, HMOs, self-insured plans and property/casualty insurance coverage for healthcare. Public payments are payments made by Federal, State and Local governments. Other private funds are funds received through philanthropic support, as well as income from the operation of gift shops, cafeterias, parking lots and educational programs.

Other spending includes dental services, other professional services, home healthcare, durable medical products, over-the-counter medicines and sundries, public health activities, research and construction.

Public payments (Medicare, Medicaid and other public sources) account for 46 percent of the nation’s healthcare dollar; private health insurance accounts for 35 percent.

On a per capita basis, National Health Expenditure grew at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 6.8 percent between 2002 and 2006.

The National Health Expenditure (NHE) is projected to nearly double between 2006 and 2015, with healthcare expected to account for 20 percent of GDP by 2015.

National Health Expenditure measures the total amount spent in the U.S. to purchase healthcare goods and services during the year. The amount invested in medical sector structures and equipment and in non-commercial research in the United States is also included.

The United States is the only country where healthcare accounts for more than 13 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, spending 16.5 percent in 2006.