2014 US health spending grew at fastest rate of Obama years

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health care spending last year grew at the fastest pace since President Barack Obama took office, driven by expanded coverage under his namesake law and by zooming prescription drug costs, the government said Wednesday.

The report by nonpartisan experts at the Department of Health and Human Services is an annual snapshot of the nation's health care system, a major slice of the economy.

For the Obama administration, it may signal the end of an unusually long lull in health care inflation that yielded political dividends.

"From the political point of view, it's absolutely significant," said Robert Blendon, who follows public opinion on health care at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

"Health care spending growth stayed well below the trend seen prior to the Affordable Care Act," Richard Frank, a top economic adviser, said in a statement.

— Prescription drug spending shot up by 12.2 percent in 2014, driven by new medications for hepatitis C infection, as well as treatments for cancer and multiple sclerosis.

— Spending on Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people, jumped by 11 percent in 2014, the fastest growth in more than a decade.