Boston (SmartAboutHealth) - The rate of growth in regards to health care spending in the U.S. hit a record low for the year 2008.

A report was released this week by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services looking into the rate of growth of health care in 2008.

What they found was that spending on health care increased by just 4.4% in the year 2008. This was the slowest rate of increase in 50-years.

In total, the U.S. spent $2.3 trillion on health care spending in the year 2008.

On average, this breaks down to around $7,650 per person in the U.S.

When you compare this to the entire U.S. economy, roughly 16% of the entire economy was made up of health care spending.

This comes as President Barack Obama continues to push for the passing of legislation that will completely reform the health care system in the U.S. as we know it.

In regards to federal spending, roughly 35% of all of the money spent by the federal government in the year 2008 was for health spending.

This was an increase from the year 2007, when it was at around 28%.

The decreased rate of growth was seen across all areas of health care.