This chart collection explores National Health Expenditure (NHE) data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). These data offer insights into changes in health spending over time in the U.S. as well as the driving forces behind spending growth. The data specifically show how healthcare spending changed in 2022 after deviating from historical trends in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Health spending totaled $74.1 billion in 1970. By 2000, health expenditures had reached about $1.4 trillion, and in 2022 the amount spent on health tripled to $4.5 trillion. In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, health spending accelerated by 10.6% from 2019 to 2020. Health spending increased by 4.1% from 2021 to 2022, somewhat faster than the 3.2% increase from 2020 to 2021. The growth in total health spending from 2021 to 2022 is similar to the average annual growth rate of the 2010s (4.8%).
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