CT Health Policy Project’s 20th Anniversary: Progress, but lots of challenges ahead
Since 1999, when the CT Health Policy Project was founded, Connecticut’s healthcare landscape has changed in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Costs are rising faster than our economy is growing, and those costs are falling disproportionately on consumers. Experts are predicting another recession and it’s unclear if Connecticut’s healthcare landscape is ready.
Since 1999, Connecticut healthcare spending, both aggregate and per person, grew faster than our economy.
Over the last twenty years, Connecticut health insurance premiums have grown more slowly than our economy, but average deductibles doubled.
Over the last twenty years, the number of Connecticut’s uninsured dropped, but not as much as expected and it is beginning to rise again. Employer-sponsored coverage experienced a slow but steady decline since 1999, largely unaffected by the Affordable Care Act. As expected, Medicaid enrollment rose, but the largest contributor to that growth was the 2008 recession. A growing number of economists agree that another recession is coming.
Sources: MEPS, National Health Expenditure Data CMS.gov, US Census health insurance, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis