National health expenditures, fiscal year 1975

According to preliminary estimates of the Nation's health spending in fiscal year 1975, health expenditures reached $118.5 billion, or $547 per person. Total health spending showed a 14-percent rise, significantly higher than the increase in 1974 when price controls in the health industry were in effect for most of the year. The acceleration of health spending during 1975 was accompanied by a slackening in the growth of the gross national product. Expenditures for this purpose, as a share of the GNP, thus rose significantly to 8.3 percent. Public spending grew two and one-half times as fast as private spending in 1975, mainly because of the continuing expansion of Medicare and Medicaid. Third parties financed an estimated two-thirds of all personal health care spending, with the government share 40 percent and that of private insurance 27 percent.