On April 4, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a brief that explores Medicare beneficiaries’ household health care spending as a proportion of their total spending.  The authors foundthat 15 percent of beneficiaries' total spending went to health-related expenses in 2009, a significantly higher proportion than in non-Medicare households.

From the report:

The Medicare program offers health and financial protection to 48 million seniors and younger people with disabilities. However, the high cost of premiums, cost-sharing requirements, and gaps in the Medicare benefit package can result in beneficiaries spending a substantial share of their household budgets on health care. This brief compares the financial
burden of average out-of-pocket health expenses as a share of total household expenditures for Medicare and non- Medicare households, based on analysis of the Consumer Expenditure Survey. It assesses how much Medicare households are spending on health-related expenses compared to other spending priorities, the extent to which health spending as a share of household budgets varies by age and poverty level, and changes in health spending over time.

Full report: Health Care on a Budget: The Financial Burden of Health Spending by Medicare Households (PDF | 657.96KB)

Kaiser Family Foundation.  (2011).  The financial burden of health spending by Medicare households.