U.S. Health Care Spending Reached $4.9 Trillion in 2023
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, Dec. 27, 2024 -- 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)."
Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.
© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Posted December 2024
Read this next
Helping Others Linked to Higher Level of Cognitive Function
THURSDAY, Aug. 21, 2025 -- Helping others, both via formal volunteering and informal helping, is associated with higher levels of cognitive function and slower cognitive decline...
TAR-200 Monotherapy Promising for BCG-Unresponsive Bladder Cancer
THURSDAY, Aug. 21, 2025 -- For patients with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive high-risk non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC), an intravesical...
Work-Related Income Drops for Parents of Children Diagnosed With Type 1 Diabetes
THURSDAY, Aug. 21, 2025 -- Work-related income decreases sharply for mothers and fathers of children diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, with similar effects across sociodemographic...
More news resources
- FDA Medwatch Drug Alerts
- Daily MedNews
- News for Health Professionals
- New Drug Approvals
- New Drug Applications
- Drug Shortages
- Clinical Trial Results
- Generic Drug Approvals
Subscribe to our newsletter
Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.