U.S. health care spending rises again, to top $6 trillion in 2026 | STAT
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STAT Plus<br>Breaking News
U.S. health spending rose sharply in 2025, thanks to GLP-1 use and more care
America is on pace to spend $6 trillion on health care this year
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JoNel Aleccia/AP
By Bob Herman<br>June 24, 2026
Bob Herman is the author of Health Care Inc., an award-winning weekly newsletter about the business of health and medicine.
Bob Herman
[email protected]
Bob covers the money in health care, focusing on health insurance and hospitals. His stories delve into Medicare Advantage, opaque prescription drug benefits, and how much executives actually make. He is also the author of the Health Care Inc. newsletter. You can reach Bob on Signal at bobjherman.09.
Americans are seeing their doctors, getting hospital procedures, and filling prescriptions more frequently than economists and budget experts anticipated. Weight loss drugs, in particular, have morphed into their own special category of spending and are pushing budgets across the country to their limits.
Combining an increased amount of care with the country’s high baseline of prices has resulted in the health care system taking up more of the economy, new data show — findings that again reflect people’s widespread discontent with how unaffordable health care has become.<br>Advertisement
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How many Americans can afford high-quality health care? A new poll finds the number has fallen
The country spent $5.7 trillion on health care in 2025, a 7.3% increase from 2024, according to the latest government figures published in the journal Health Affairs on Wednesday. That amounted to almost $16,500 per person.
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Bob Herman
Business of Health Care Reporter
Bob covers the money in health care, focusing on health insurance and hospitals. His stories delve into Medicare Advantage, opaque prescription drug benefits, and how much executives actually make. He is also the author of the Health Care Inc. newsletter. You can reach Bob on Signal at bobjherman.09.
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