What’s also not known about where we spend?
Most Medicare dollars are spent in the last 6 years of life.
Ten percent is spent in the last year of life.
Five percent of all Medicare patients die per year and spend almost 30 percent ($143 billion in 2009) of the Medicare budget.
Medicare patients who die spend about six times more in their last year of life than those who do not, which comes to about $25,000 for each person who dies, compared with the almost $4,000 spent per year for those Medicare patients who do not die.