Alaska’s Health-Care Bill: $7.5 Billion and Climbing

Authors

• Mark A. Foster
• Oliver Scott Goldsmith

Files

Description

Health-care spending for Alaskans reached about $7.5 billion in 2010. For comparison, that’s close to half the wellhead value of all the oil produced in Alaska that year. It’s also roughly equal to half the wages Alaskans collected in 2010. The state’s health-care spending has been rising fast, tripling since 1990 and jumping 40% just between 2005 and 2010—and at current trends it could double by 2020, reaching more than $14 billion. Here we report on who’s paying the bills, what we’re buying, what’s contributing to the growth, and other aspects of health-care spending. We conclude with a discussion of how Alaska could get better value for its health-care dollars.

Publication Date

8-17-2011

Recommended Citation

Foster, Mark A. and Goldsmith, Oliver Scott, "Alaska’s Health-Care Bill: $7.5 Billion and Climbing" (2011). Reports. 45.
https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/uaa_iser_reports/45

Handle

http://hdl.handle.net/11122/4119