The Value Zeitgeist — Considering the Slowdown in Health Care Spending Growth

It has long been accepted as truth that health care spending in the United States is growing unsustainably and that tough choices are required to constrain it. We have at times contributed to this drumbeat. Yet, over the past two decades, the health care spending growth rate in the United States has declined. Health care spending as a proportion of total national spending has been flat, at approximately 17%, since the late 2000s, meaning that health care cost growth hasn’t exceeded growth in the gross domestic product, on average. Per-beneficiary Medicare spending grew at an average rate of 6.6% per year between 1987 and 2005, but by 2.2% per year between 2013 and 2019.¹

In 2024, the Medicare...

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