A new AHRQ Statistical Brief – Concentration of Healthcare Expenditures and Selected Characteristics of High Spenders, U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 2019 – found that, in 2019, the top 1 percent of people who spent the most on their healthcare accounted for about 21 percent of total healthcare expenditures, while the bottom 50 percent accounted for only 3 percent of expenditures.
In this Statistical Brief, data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component (MEPS-HC) are used to describe the overall concentration of healthcare expenditures across the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population in 2019. The most commonly treated conditions among top spenders are identified, and the shares of spending by age groups, race/ethnicity, type of medical service, and source of payment are illustrated. All differences discussed in the text are statistically significant at the 0.05 level.
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