As Americans used less medical services overall, health care spending rose at double the rate of inflation in 2010 because hospitals, outpatient centers, and other providers charged higher prices, according to a report by the Health Care Cost Institute.

Health costs jumped by 3.3 percent during the economic downturn even though people were using less care, so people with job-based insurance “are paying more and getting less,” said Chapin White, a senior researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change. Hospitals and other medical providers “just seem to be able to raise prices faster than general inflation,” he said.

Health care costs grew the fastest for children under 18, and the prices for outpatient visits and inpatient admissions increased faster than other health services:

The analysis studied 3 billion claims paid by insurance companies Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare for 33 million people who have job-based insurance nationwide, but it does not include spending for people on Medicare, Medicaid, or who buy their own policies.

Along with the growing costs, average health care costs for a family of four have topped $20,000. The report by the Commonwealth Fund found that people in the U.S. spend more on health care per person than any other developed nation, but do not receive the best quality of care.

Insurers argue they simply pass on the rising cost of care to consumers, but because of the rapid increases, these two reports about rising health care costs highlight why the U.S. needs the Affordable Care Act. President Obama’s health care reform law will help reduce costs and improve quality, which is key to making health insurance more affordable.

Missouri legislators passed a bill Friday that allows employers or health insurance providers to stop offering coverage for contraception, abortion, or sterilization if doing so violates their religious or moral convictions. The bill now goes to Gov. Jay Nixon (D), who has not said whether he supports the legislation.

The measure mirrors a federal restriction proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that has not progressed in Congress and is designed to push back against the Obama administration’s rule requiring contraception coverage to be included in insurance plans at no additional cost.

While some Democrats opposed the anti-contraception bill, it passed the Senate 28-6 and the House 105-33:

The bill states that no employer or health plan provider can be compelled to provide coverage _ or be penalized for refusing to cover _ abortion, contraception or sterilization if those items run contrary to their religious or moral convictions. The bill also gives the state attorney general grounds to sue other governmental officials or entities that infringe on the rights granted in the legislation.

“This bill is about religious freedom and moral convictions,” said Rep. Sandy Crawford, R-Buffalo. “This is about sending a message to the federal government that we don’t like things rammed down our throat.”

But state Rep. Stacey Newman (D) said the bill endangering women’s access to health care was more of an attack on “women’s reproductive choices” than a message to the federal government. “This is wrong and I dare you to go home and talk to your daughters … and say, ‘Look, what we’re going to say is that your employers’ religious beliefs matter more than your own,’” Newman told colleagues.

In 2006, 53 percent of pregnancies in Missouri were unintended, 61 percent of which resulted in live births and 25 percent resulted in induced abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 65 percent of births that were unintended were publicly funded, compared to 50 percent of all births and 37 percent of intended pregnancies.