Medicare Part C Added

On March 15, 2014 we updated usgovernmentspending.com to show details of the federal Medicare Part C program, Medicare Advantage.

Historical Table 3.2, published each year in the Historical Tables section of the Budget of the United States, is the primary source we use for showing federal outlays down to the "subfunction" level.  Table 3.2 includes about 80 line items.  But Medicare appears as a single line item, subfunction 571.

Previously, we have broken out outlays for Part A Hospital Insurance, Part B Supplementary Medical Insurance, and Part D SMI Drug programs from single subfunctions.   We have constructed these outlays from detailed items published in the Public Budget Database.

Details of Part C Medicare are not provided in the Public Budget Database, but they are shown in the annual Medicare Trustees Report, and we have extracted data from the reports to construct a data series for Part C Medicare Advantage.  You can inspect the extracted data from Medicare Trustees Reports here.

Strictly speaking, Part C Medicare Advantage started in 2006.  But the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 created Medicare+Choice, really a precursor of Medicare Advantage, and the Medicare Trustees Report tracks the cost of Medicare+Choice's payments to private health plans and then Medicare Advantage's payments to private health plans.  Thus we have extended Part C back to 1998.

In the Public Budget Database Part C Medicare Advantage outlays are included as part of Part A and Part B outlays.  They are recorded in the Medicare Trustees Report as “Medicare Payments to Private Health Plans” from Part A and Part B trust funds.  In creating the new Part C line items we have reduced the HI (Part A) Benefits and SMI (Part B) Benefits line items so that the overall totals remain the same.

Also, Medicare Part A and Part B subtract "Premiums and Collections" from their published Outlays.  For Part A this is a nominal amount.  But we have prorated the Part B Premiums and Collections between Part B and Part C, and we have provided a line item for Part C "Prorated Premiums and Collections."  The proration for Part B Premiums and Collections looks like this:

SMI (Part C) Prorated Premiums and Collections = SMI (Part B) Premiums and Collections * (SMI (Part C) Private Health Plan Bid + SMI (Part C) Private Health Plan Rebate) / ( SMI (Part C) Private Health Plan Bid + SMI (Part C) Private Health Plan Rebate+ SMI (Part B) Benefits)

The SMI (Part B) Premiums and Collections is reduced by the amount of SMI (Part C) Prorated Premiums and Collections.

usgovernmentspending.com has now surfaced the Part A, Part B. Part C, and Part D outlays up to the subfunction level by extending our unofficial subfunctions for the Medicare program as follows:

New sub- function	Description
572	HI (Part A) Benefits
573	HI (Part A) Administration
574	HI (Part A) Premiums and Collections
575	SMI (Part B) Benefits
576	SMI (Part B) Administration
577	SMI (Part B) Prorated Premiums and Collections
581	SMI Drug (Part D) Benefits
582	SMI Drug (Part D) Administration
583	SMI Drug(Part D) Premiums and Collections
584	Other
585	HI (Part C) Private Health Plan Bid
586	HI (Part C) Private Health Plan Rebate
587	SMI (Part C) Private Health Plan Bid
588	SMI (Part C) Private Health Plan Rebate
589	SMI (Part C) Prorated Premiums and Collections

You can find the new detailed Medicare numbers on the Medicare Spending Details page here and the Medicare Spending by Year page here.  You can also look at the Entitlements History page here.

Reminder: The fifteen "subfunctions" 572 through 589 are not official US government subfunctions.

See the blog entry that announced Medicare Part A, Part B, Part D details here.

Federal Budget FY15 Released

On March 10, 2014, we updated usgovernmentspending.com with the numbers from the Historical Tables in the FY15 federal budget. Actual revenue for FY 2013 and estimated revenue through FY 2019 come from Tables 2.1, 2.4, and 2.5. Actual spending for FY 2013 and estimated spending at the subfunction level through FY 2019 comes from Table 3.2. Budget Authority estimates come from Table 5.1, federal debt estimates come from Table 7.1 and GDP estimates come from Table 10.1.

We have also generated synthetic subfunction data to separate Social Security subfunction 651 into OASI and DI and Medicare subfunction 571 into Part A, Part B, and Part D using the Public Budget Database.

You can see you each line item changes from budget to budget here. You can compare budget estimates with actuals here.

Account level spending estimates through FY 2019 come from the Outlays table in the Public Budget Database.  You can access account level data by drilling down on the [+] controls here.

Account level budget authority estimates through FY 2019 come from the Budget Authority table in the Public Budget Database.  You can access Budget Authority data by drilling down on the [+] controls here.

GDP Data Source and Methodology Revision

On July 31, 2013, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) revised its GDP methodology.  The published GDP and real GDP for each year going back to 1929 has changed.  For instance, the GDP for 2012 under the new methodology was reported as $16,244.6 billion; under the old methodology the GDP for 2012 was $15,684.8 billion.

Presumably, BEA will update its state GDP methodology when the 2013 numbers come out in June 2014.

Up to now, usgsovernmentspending.com has used Table 10.1 in the Historical Tables of the Federal Budget for projected GDP and measuringworth.com for historical GDP. We used measuringworth.com because its data series goes back to the 1790s.

Starting now, we are using measuringworth.com for GDP from 1792 to 1928; we are using the BEA GDP from 1929 to the present.  And we are using Table 10.1 in the Historical Tables of the Federal Budget for projected GDP.

Federal Budget FY15 Released. Details Delayed

On March 4, 2014, the US government released parts of the Budget of the United States Government for fiscal year 2015.  However the Historical Tables and other details will not be released until March 11, 2014.

usgovernmentspending.com will update budget details when the Historical Tables are published.