National Health Care Spending In 2019: Steady Growth For The Fourth Consecutive Year

Abstract

US health care spending increased 4.6 percent to reach $3.8 trillion in 2019, similar to the rate of growth of 4.7 percent in 2018. The share of the economy devoted to health care spending was 17.7 percent in 2019 compared with 17.6 percent in 2018. In 2019 faster growth in spending for hospital care, physician and clinical services, and retail purchases of prescription drugs-which together accounted for 61 percent of total national health spending-was offset mainly by expenditures for the net cost of health insurance, which were lower because of the suspension of the health insurance tax in 2019.