Health Spending Jumped 8.7% in 2001

Americans’ spending on health care soared 8.7% in 2001, the biggest annual increase in a decade.

Spending jumped to $1.4 trillion, up from $1.3 trillion in 2000, for an average of about $5,035 per person, according to a report issued by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The report, done annually to examine private and public sector spending, appears in the January-February issue of the journal Health Affairs.

Health care, the report said, is becoming a force in the nation’s economy, jumping from 13.3% of the gross domestic product in 2000 to 14.1% in 2001 -- the largest increase since 1991.