Bill Bennett: “Here are medical expenditures. The dark figure--no metaphor intended--the dark figure is for public expenditures for…”

“Here are medical expenditures. The dark figure--no metaphor intended--the dark figure is for public expenditures for health care; the light figure is for private expenditures. The expenditures are calculated in terms of percentage growth. That is, if we look at 1985, in that year, public expenditures for health care went up at a rate of 8.8 percent per year, while private expenditures went up 10.3 percent. We can see in these years there is a disparity. Some years public ones go up faster than private; other years private expenditures go up substantially faster than public expenditures. We can see that, in general terms, it is around 8 or 9 percent in public expenditures and slightly more than that in private expenditures. Then in 1989, something happened. In 1989, the rate of increase for public expenditures went to its highest level--11.9 percent; private levels going up at 10.3 percent. Then, in 1990, public expenditures went up 13.2 percent; for the second year in a row, public expenditures went up faster than private, a trend that has continued to this day unabated. In 1991, public expenditures are still up in the double digits--12.6 percent, but market forces are beginning to assert themselves in the private marketplace, and the private expenditures only increased 5.6 percent. It did not stay down that low the next year. They came up to 6.9; but public expenditures stayed in double digits at 10.8 percent. Now they have been getting better.…”