I haven’t revisited these reports for a while. Altarum takes federal data and does there own analysis to identify spending, price and utilization trends for the US. Year-over-year in January 2025 national health spending rose 6.3%. Personal health spending, the bulk of national health spending, rose 6.4% year-over-year. Drugs were the fastest rising category at 8.3% and nursing home spending slowed to 5.4% growth.
In terms of health care prices, in February 2025, overall they rose 2.8% year-over-year. Drug price increases accelerated 4.6%, the fastest in some time. Prices rose fastest for private insurers at 3.6%, Medicare by 1.6% and Medicaid 2.6%. Considering price rises and spending increases, utilization growth was 3.7%. On a monthly basis, from December to January, prices rose .4% and utilization fell .07%.
Overall, the picture is that health spending is growing rapidly, as are health prices. This is a problem for government and consumers. (Altarum Reports)
