The five most costly medical conditions for the United States didn’t change from 1996 to 2006, but the country did see one big shift: spending on treating mental illness almost doubled in that decade.

Heart conditions, trauma, mental disorders, cancer, and asthma accounted for the lion’s share of health care spending in both years, according to the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, a sampling of US households that collects data on health care spending by individuals, employers, and private and government insurers.

“It looks like whatever was a big deal 11 years ago, it’s still the big deal now,” Dr. Anita Soni, the survey analyst and statistician at the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality in Rockville, Maryland, who did the analysis, told Reuters Health. “Everything else is small compared to the number that we spent on these five.”

The 1996 breakdown on spending for these conditions, in 2006 dollars, was as follows, according to Soni’s analysis: $72 billion for heart conditions, $46.9 billion for cancer, $46.2 billion for trauma, $35.5 billion for asthma, and $35.2 billion for mental disorders.

In 2006, heart conditions remained the most expensive overall category, at $78 billion, followed by trauma-related disorders ($68.1 billion), cancer and mental disorders (both $57.5 billion), and $51.3 billion for asthma.

While Soni’s analysis didn’t investigate the reasons behind the increases in spending, she noted that the number of people being treated for mental illness between 1996 and 2006 nearly doubled, from 19 million people to 36 million people.

Despite the big jump in trauma treatment costs, the researcher found, the number of people being treated for these conditions actually fell, from 37.9 million to 34.9 million.

For the three other conditions, the number of people receiving treatment rose between 1996 and 2006: from 16.6 million to 19.7 million for heart conditions; from 9.2 million to 11.1 million for cancer; and from 40.2 million to 48.5 million for asthma.

Out-of-pocket spending for mental illness was greater than for the other four categories in both 1996 and 2008, followed by asthma.

By Anne Harding
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)