New HCCI Study: Higher prices for care may be driving health care costs ‎

A new study from the Health Care Cost Institute, a nonpartisan research group funded by insurers, found that costs rose 3.3 percent in 2010 even though people actually used fewer services in many categories. The report notes that spending grew not as a result of a lot of unnecessary procedures and treatments but because the services themselves were more expensive

Higher prices charged by hospitals, outpatient centers and other providers drove up health care spending at double the rate of inflation, Prices declined in only one category: nursing home care, which saw a 3.2 percent drop in the cost per admission. One of the areas with the fastest growing spending was children's medical care.

Coverage and commentary on this research can be found in a number of places today including articles from Julie Appleby in Kaiser Health News and Lester Feder in Politico.