Paying Out of Pocket

Healthcare costs are rising for families. In 2015 the US spent 18 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare, up from 13 percent in 2000. For every dollar spent on healthcare, families paid 11 cents out of pocket and 28 cents after including insurance costs. While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services project healthcare spending to continue to grow faster than GDP through 2025, the future of family-paid healthcare costs also rests with policy choices currently being debated. Out-of-pocket costs are a key piece of that picture, as family healthcare spending has a meaningful impact on families’ financial lives.

In its latest report, the JPMorgan Chase Institute set out to better understand out-of-pocket healthcare spending among 2.3 million US consumers on a month-to-month basis, at the state, metro and county level, with data as recent as 2016.

Key findings include:

• Out-of-pocket healthcare spending grew between 2013 and 2016, but remained a relatively constant share of take-home income
• The financial burden was highest for older, lower-income and female account holders and increased in 2016 for low-income account holders
• Spending was highly concentrated among a few families—often the same families year over year. The top 10 percent spent 9 percent of their take-home income on out-of-pocket healthcare expenses
• Spending varied dramatically across and within the 23 states included in the report. For instance, families in Colorado spent the most on healthcare, while families in Louisiana spent the highest fraction of their gross income on healthcare

Access the full report for more findings.