U.S. healthcare spending rises to $4.5 trillion in 2022

[December 14, 2023]  (Reuters) - Healthcare spending in the United States rose 4.1% in 2022 to $4.5 trillion, federal data showed on Wednesday, a rate that officials said indicated a return to pre-pandemic patterns after two years of volatility.

The growth was driven by spending on Medicaid and private health insurance, with the insured share of the population surging to a historic high of 92%, data from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) showed.

The number of uninsured individuals declined for the third straight year to 26.6 million from 28.5 million in 2021.

Spending on healthcare surged 10.6% in 2020, and then declined dramatically to 3.2% in the following year.

"Healthcare expenditures since 2020 have reflected volatile patterns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and the federal government's response to the public health emergency," said Micah Hartman, a statistician at the CMS' Office of the Actuary.

Hartman said while 2022's healthcare spending growth rate was more consistent with the average annual growth rate of 4.4% between 2016 and 2019, it remains to be seen how future spending will trend.

The estimated healthcare spending per person in the United States stood at about $13,493 in 2022.

Personal healthcare spending on hospital care, dental, clinical and physician services slowed down in the year, while non-personal expenses accelerated, driven by a turnaround in the net cost of insurance.

Medicaid spending surged 9.6%, reaching $805.7 billion, and private health insurance spending grew 5.9%, totaling $1.3 trillion. Medicare spending rose 5.9% to $944.3 billion.

(Reporting by Pratik Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

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