A new U.S. Census Bureau report said that Medicaid continued to be the largest source of funding for nursing and residential care facilities in 2007 at $59 billion.

According to the report, overall, health care and social assistance revenue increased 6.8 percent
in 2007 to $1.66 trillion, up from $1.56 trillion in 2006.

And that overall health care and social assistance revenue will be dramatically increasing in years to come.

Bill Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonprofit organization formed to campaign for national fiscal responsibility, said entitlement programs now take 42 percent of the $1.3 trillion federal budget.

Bixby, who recently spoke at the national American Farm Bureau Federation meeting, said two socio-economic trends will greatly enlarge this percentage over the course of the next five decades.

First, the percentage of citizens who are 65 years of age or older will become a much larger portion of the national population, according to Bixby.  In 2007 this age group accounted for less than 13 percent of the population, but by 2047, Bixby said  it will constitute more than 20 percent. Second, health care costs continue to increase. In 2007 they absorbed approximately 5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. Based upon current projections, they will amount to more than 20 percent of the by 2047.