WASHINGTON — The total amount America spends on health care will rise modestly over the next decade, continuing a trend that began during the recession, according to new projections.

However, national health spending is still expected to outpace economic growth, threatening to make medical care increasingly unaffordable.

And by 2024, health care is projected to consume 19.6 percent of the economy, up from 17.4 percent in 2013, said the report, published in the journal Health Affairs.

“These trends are in contrast to when health spending growth remained at near historic low rates” during and after the last recession, independent actuaries at the federal Department of Health and Human Services noted in the report.

The annual projections, though necessarily uncertain, provide an important overview of emerging issues in the nation’s large and complex health care system.

This year’s report contains some encouraging news. Though still increasing, health care spending is rising far more slowly than it did before the 2008-09 recession, when annual increases averaged 9 percent through the ‘80s, ‘90s and 2000s. Spending is projected to grow on average 5.8 percent annually over the next decade.

The slowdown in total spending growth is happening despite the massive expansion in coverage made possible by the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which is bringing millions of previously uninsured Americans into health plans.

The new report projects that the uninsured rate will decline to just 7.6 percent in 2024, down from 14 percent in 2013, before the coverage expansion began.

The number of elderly Americans is also increasing which tends to increase health spending. Yet Medicare spending is projected to rise relatively slowly, restrained in part by measures to control costs in the 2010 health law.