The Average Hospital Stay Now Costs More Than Average Rent

To put that figure in perspective, that’s more than the average person’s monthly rent in 2013 — and more than three times the average family’s monthly grocery bill.

 

It wasn’t always this way. The same study, published earlier this month in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, shows that out-of-pocket hospital costs increased 37 percent between 2009 and 2013 alone.

Out-of-pocket health care costs have, in recent years, risen much faster than overall health care spending has. This is partly because companies have been offering their workers skimpier health coverage, leaving patients to pay a larger chunk of the bill.

This lets companies keep premiums relatively low — patients don’t see spikes in the amount they pay month to month to stay enrolled in their benefits. But it also shifts costs to those who use the health care system in any significant way.

Deductibles, for example, have steadily increased in recent decades. This is the amount that patients need to spend before their benefits kick in.

A decade ago a deductible over $500 was rare, and one over $1,000 was pretty much unheard of. Not anymore: The average deductible hit $1,077 in 2015 — up from $646 in 2010 and $303 in 2006, data from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows.