Health Care Spending: 1998, 2003, and 2008: “How have rising health care costs affected household budgets? That question was raised many times before the passage of the Affordable Care Act, whose goal—as the act’s name implies—is to make health care more affordable for American families. This analysis of Consumer Expenditure Survey (CE) data from the 1998, 2003, and 2008 Interview Surveys provides a picture of nominal out-of-pocket health care spending among households categorized by the age of the reference person. The expenses analyzed were total health care and its components: health insurance, medical services, prescription drugs, and medical supplies.”