Chia’s executive director, Lauren Peters, expressed an alarm for rapid spending. With an increase of 8.6 %, Massachusetts’ medical expenditure was $ 11,153 per resident.
PETERS said in a statement: “In 2023, the expense growth trend will continue to continue, and the pressure is increased in residents, employers and systems as a whole, emphasizing urgent needs for bold and systematic solutions.
PETERS is expected to discuss the analysis on Thursdays by the Meeting of the State Health Policy Committee and the Congress’s Health Career Finance Joint Committee. This report covers a variety of medical expenses, including prescription drugs, outpatients of hospitals, and inpatient patients, and visits to doctors.
According to the report, prescription drugs have triggered the increase in spending with the new Masshealth supplementation. The total expenditure for medicines has increased by $ 1 billion, while Masshealth, a Medicaid program in Massachusetts, has paid a new $ 1.5 billion incentive to a hospital that meets certain standards for quality and capital.
Expenses for prescription drugs showed the largest percentage of overall medical expenditures, and increased to $ 15 billion to $ 15.2 billion, up 11.6 % over 2022. The next largest category was the treatment of outpatient patients in the hospital, a total of $ 14 billion, up 8.3 % year -on -year.
Expensive blockbuster weight loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound are believed to have contributed to the increase in spending on prescription drugs. If Chia performs a report in 2024, the effect will be greater when more patients begin to use the so-called GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and weight management.
In Massachusetts, the economy of health care was widely spread, but 41.3 %of the residents were struggling to pay for treatment, but it was more burdensome for Hispanic residents (58.2 %) and non -Hispanic black residents (48.7 %).
David Seltz, managing director of the Health Policy Committee, said that health care costs are continuing at an amazing speed.
“This year, pharmacy spending has increased $ 1 billion year -on -year due to the main driving force of cost growth,” he said in the statement.
The chief executive of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, representing more than 1,700 drugs and life science companies, challenged the proposal that the increase in pharmaceutical prices was greatly responsible for the increase in medical expenditure.
Kendalle Burlin O’Connell, chief executive and president of Massbio, said, “Massbio is currently reviewing Chia’s latest cost trend report and questioning whether the available data completely captures all the elements that contribute to the increase in pharmacy spending. She said her trade group wanted “a more complete picture of the root cause of cost growth.”
Steve Walsh, president and chief executive of the Massachusets HealthTs HealthTs, said the report said the benchmark for annual spending is unrealistic. For several years, his group insisted that it should be raised.
“Massachusetts needs a modernized approach to benchmarks that accept real -time demands of today’s patients and medical service providers.
Health care policy experts said Massachusetts actually spent much more money than Chia calculated in 2023.
Alan Sager, the Health Law, Policy and Management Professor of Boston University, said that if Chia includes the costs of federal governments when calculating the amount spent on each state, the actual total will be 45 % higher.
First of all, Chia does not include workplace health care, workers’ compensation health expenditures, vocational rehabilitation, school health, dental insurance, and the expenditure of various federal institutions, including the Pentagon, on treatment that is not covered by insurers.
He said that if these expenses were included, Massachusetts’ medical expenditures would have been $ 115 billion or about $ 16,200 per person in 2023.
“We spend a lot of money on health care. “It is enough to provide the right treatment for everyone who needs. We probably waste half of the money we spent. ”
Jonathan Saltzman can contact jonathan.saltzman@globe.com.
