Current Affairs

CMS says health spending will rise 7.5% in 2023


U.S. health spending rose 7.5% in 2023, to $4.9 trillion, compared with a 4.6% increase in 2022, according to figures released Wednesday by CMS.

“Much of the growth came from faster growth and spending [by] Anne Martin, of the CMS Office of the Actuary, said during a sponsored press conference: Health Affairs. “For Medicaid, although spending and enrollment continued to increase, growth rates were lower in 2023 than in 2022 – Medicaid spending grew 7.9% in 2023 compared to 9.7% growth in 2022.”

This faster growth occurred in part because spending on traditional fee-for-service Medicare rose from a 1.4% decline in 2022 to a 1.7% increase in 2023, Martin and colleagues explained in a report. Article in Health Affairs. Additionally, “spending on Medicare Advantage private plans is growing rapidly…accounting for 52% of total Medicare expenditures in 2023,” up from 39% in 2019, they wrote.

As insurance companies have increased spending, the percentage of people insured in the United States has also increased over the past four years, she said. The number of insured residents “reaches 92.5% in 2023,” Martin said. “This increase can be attributed to strong growth in private health insurance enrollment rates, especially in 2022 and 2023, which was driven by strong increases in private health insurance enrollment rates. [Affordable Care Act] Join the market. Employer-sponsored private health insurance also contributed to this increase. She said that Medicaid enrollment “remained high, reaching 91.7 million beneficiaries.”

For health care services, hospital care had the largest increase in growth, with a 10.4% increase in 2023 compared to 3.2% in 2022, Martin said. “For medical and clinical services, spending was up 7.4% in 2023 compared to growth of 4.6% in 2022, and these increases are primarily due to growth in non-price factors such as service use and intensity.”

Spending on prescription drugs also rose, growing 11.4% in 2023 after 7.8% growth in 2022, she said, adding that “rapid growth in the use of antidiabetic drugs contributed to this increase. In addition, the growth is due to factors associated with the mixture. Which includes the number of prescriptions dispensed, whether brand or generic, and the price.”

Although physician spending was higher, “price growth was low and flat between the two years,” Martin said. MedPage Today During the question and answer session. “Prices rose by only 0.6%.” [in 2023] Compared to 0.5% in 2022… Since the price has been flat, the acceleration is mainly attributable to usage and increasing density, much of it through private health insurance and Medicare.

Ben Washington, also of CMS’s Office of the Actuary, agrees that the intensity of spending on physician services in Medicare and private insurance contributed to this increase, as did higher direct spending. “We’ve also noticed … that there’s a high flu season in 2023, so that could contribute to some of the increase in utilization that we’re seeing” in spending on medical services, he said.

Regarding the sector’s relationship to GDP, “during the peak of the pandemic—primarily due to increased federal funding for coronavirus relief—the share of national health spending in GDP increased to 19.5% in 2020.” Martin said. “However, as supplemental federal funding declines and health spending growth rates decline, NHE’s share of GDP returns to 17.6% in 2023, roughly the same share as in 2019, when it was 17.5%.” During the period 2020-2023, health spending and GDP grew at approximately the same rate: 6.6% in the National Education Fund and 6.5% in GDP.

  • Joyce Frieden oversees MedPage Today’s coverage in Washington, including stories on Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, health care trade associations and federal agencies. She has 35 years of experience in health policy coverage. He follows

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