Health Care Spending in Medicare Households

A new report, Health Care on a Budget: An Analysis of Spending by Medicare Households, finds that in 2006, out-of-pocket health care spending accounted for 14.1 percent of all expenditures for Medicare households – less than housing (34.1 percent) but about the same as transportation (15.0 percent) and food (13.6 percent). And, one in four Medicare households devotes more than one quarter of total household expenditures to health care. This group includes a disproportionate share of Medicare households that are low- and middle-income, have older members (age 75+), and are living in rural areas.