STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Even though the rate of growth is slowing, NPR's Joanne Silberner reports that news may not be as good as it sounds.
JOANNE SILBERNER: Every year since 1960, government economists have collected information on how much is spent on health care in the U.S. and by whom. Then they analyze how much things have changed since the year before. This year's analysis was headed by Aaron Catlin, an economist with the Department of Health and Human Services.
AARON CATLIN: Health spending in the United States accelerated slightly, picked up in growth to 6.7 percent in 2006. That's up two-tenths of a percentage point from 2005.
SILBERNER: Again, economist Aaron Catlin.
CATLIN: With the prescription drug estimate, we attribute about 50 percent of the growth in prescription drugs spending to increases in use. Some of that increased use had come from beneficiaries under Part D.
SILBERNER: But some other health experts say there are big problems ahead. Health care inflation is far from solved. Health care consultant Bob Lashefsky.
BOB LASHEFSKY: It's sort of like the ship is sinking at a reduced rate from where the ship was sinking before. Health care costs are going up at about twice the rate of inflation. Five years ago, they were going up at four times the rate of inflation.
SILBERNER: Paul Ginsburg sees other problems. He's president of the Center for Studying Health Systems Change, which has been examining health spending in communities around the country. For one thing, Ginsburg says, if the economy hits a downturn and wages slump, health care costs will take a bigger bite out of every paycheck. Plus, he expects that the nation's obesity epidemic is going to drive up health costs. And in traveling around the country, he's seen marketplace changes that worry him.
PAUL GINSBURG: What we've seen is that, you know, the hospitals and physicians have identified which services are the most profitable. So hospitals identify, you know, cardiac procedures, and physicians have identified imaging. And what's profitable they're building.
SILBERNER: Joanne Silberner, NPR News, Washington.
INSKEEP: Even with all that spending, a separate study out this week finds that the United States lags behind other developed countries in preventable deaths. You can get those numbers at npr.org/health.