U.S. health care spending reached $4.9 trillion in 2023

Health care spending in the United States reached $4.9 trillion and increased 7.5 percent in 2023, according to a study published online Dec. 18 in Health Affairs.

Anne B. Martin, from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in Baltimore, and colleagues examined growth in national health expenditures in 2023.

The researchers found that in 2023, health care spending in the United States reached $4.9 trillion and increased 7.5 percent, up from a rate of 4.6 percent in 2022. The insured share of the population reached 92.5 percent in 2023, as enrollment in private health insurance increased strongly for the second year running; private health insurance and Medicare spending both grew faster than in 2022. As the COVID-19 public health emergency ended, spending and enrollment growth slowed for Medicaid. The health sector’s share of the economy was 17.6 percent in 2023, which was similar to 17.4 percent in 2022, but lower than the share in 2020 and 2021 during the height of the pandemic. Compared with 2022, in 2023, state and local governments accounted for a higher share of spending, while the federal government share was lower with the decline in COVID-19-related funding and slowing in growth of federal Medicaid spending.

“On average during 2020 to 2023, health care spending and overall economic growth increased 6.6 percent and 6.5 percent per year, respectively,” the authors write. “As a result, the share of the economy devoted to health care in 2023 (17.6 percent) was about the same share as in 2019 (17.5 percent).”

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