Hospital Costs in America in 2026
Hospital costs in the United States are a defining feature of American life — one that touches virtually every household at some point, often at the worst possible moment. Unlike most developed nations where healthcare is treated as a public service with costs absorbed at a national level, the US hospital system operates in a market where prices are negotiated privately between hospitals, insurers, employers, and government programs — a structure that creates extraordinary variation in what the same procedure costs depending on who you are, where you live, and what insurance you carry. The result is a system where a single overnight hospital stay can run anywhere from a few hundred dollars out-of-pocket with good insurance to tens of thousands without it, and where a heart bypass surgery in New York can cost more than double what the same procedure costs in Baltimore.
In 2026, the scale of U.S. hospital spending is genuinely staggering. According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), total U.S. healthcare spending reached $5.3 trillion in 2024 — or $15,474 per person — of which hospital care alone accounted for $1.634 trillion, representing 31% of all national health spending. Hospital expenditures grew 8.9% in 2024 alone, the second year of strong post-pandemic growth fueled by rising utilization, labor cost inflation, and higher intensity of care. The average cost of a single day in a U.S. hospital is $3,130 to $3,297 depending on the data source and measurement method — a number that has more than doubled since the year 2000 and continues climbing faster than general inflation every single year. This article pulls together the most current, source-verified data available on hospital costs in the US — by day, by procedure, by state, by payer, and per person — to give you the clearest possible picture of where things stand in 2026.
📊 Key Hospital Cost Facts in the US 2026 — At a Glance
| # | Hospital Cost Fact | Data Point |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Total US healthcare spending (2024) | $5.3 trillion |
| 2 | Healthcare spending per person (2024) | $15,474 per person |
| 3 | Total hospital care spending (2024) | $1.634 trillion — 31% of all health spend |
| 4 | Hospital spending growth rate (2024) | +8.9% year-over-year |
| 5 | Average hospital cost per day (national) | $3,130–$3,297 |
| 6 | Average overnight stay cost (no insurance) | ~$11,700 |
| 7 | Average overnight stay — Medicare patients | ~$13,600 |
| 8 | Average inpatient stay duration | 4.5 days |
| 9 | Average total cost of 4.5-day stay | ~$13,600–$14,000 |
| 10 | Out-of-pocket cost with insurance (2022) | $1,982 average — up 11% in 5 years |
| 11 | Average employee deductible (2024) | $1,787 before insurance kicks in |
| 12 | Hours of work to pay for a hospital stay | 384 hours at average US wage |
| 13 | Most expensive state per day | California — $4,819/day (KFF/AHA 2024) |
| 14 | Least expensive state per day | Mississippi — $1,064–$1,227/day |
| 15 | Nonprofit hospital avg cost per day | $3,288/day |
| 16 | For-profit hospital avg cost per day | $2,529/day |
| 17 | Heart bypass surgery average cost | $57,128 |
| 18 | Heart attack hospitalization average | $47,666 |
| 19 | Appendectomy average cost (2026) | $16,000 |
| 20 | Bankruptcies related to medical expenses | ~60–65% of all US bankruptcies |
Source: CMS National Health Expenditure Accounts (2024, released 2025), KFF / AHA Hospital Statistics 2024, Becker’s Hospital Review (January 2026), ConsumerShield (January 2026), Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, Weiss & Paarz, CostWhale (2026)
The numbers in this table represent a healthcare cost crisis that operates quietly in the background of American life until it doesn’t — until a family member has a stroke, a child needs emergency surgery, or a routine knee replacement turns into a financial emergency. The $15,474 per-person annual healthcare spend in the US is the highest of any nation on earth by a wide margin, yet the US ranks below most comparable wealthy nations on key outcomes including life expectancy, infant mortality, and preventable deaths. The 384 hours of work the average American would need to log just to cover a single typical hospital stay — without even factoring in insurance premiums, deductibles, or the ongoing costs of chronic care — is a figure that puts the financial burden in visceral human terms. And the fact that 60 to 65% of all US bankruptcies are linked to medical expenses confirms that hospital costs are not just an inconvenience — they are a leading cause of financial ruin for American families.
Total US Hospital Spending & National Healthcare Costs in 2026
📊 US National Healthcare Spending — Historical Growth (Nominal $)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1970 ██ $74.1 billion
2000 ████████████████████████ $1.4 trillion
2019 ████████████████████████████████████ $3.8 trillion
2022 ████████████████████████████████████████ $4.5 trillion
2023 █████████████████████████████████████████ $4.9 trillion
2024 ██████████████████████████████████████████ $5.3 trillion
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━| Spending Metric | Value (2024) | Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Total US healthcare spending | $5.3 trillion | +7.2% from 2023 |
| Per person healthcare spending | $15,474 | +7.2% YoY |
| Hospital care spending | $1.634 trillion | +8.9% YoY |
| Hospital care share of total health spending | 31% | Largest category |
| Physician & clinical services spending | $1.1 trillion | +8.1% YoY |
| Prescription drug spending | $467 billion | +7.9% YoY |
| Healthcare as % of GDP (2024) | 18.0% | Up from 17.6% in 2022 |
| Healthcare projected as % of GDP (2033) | 20.3% | CMS projection |
| NHE projected growth 2025 | +7.1% | CMS/Health Affairs |
| NHE average annual growth (2024–2033) | 5.8%/year | Exceeds GDP growth (4.3%) |
Source: CMS National Health Expenditure Accounts Historical Data (released June 2025); CMS NHE Projections 2024–2033; Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker (February 2026)
US healthcare spending has more than tripled since 2000, climbing from roughly $1.4 trillion to $5.3 trillion by 2024 — a growth rate that consistently outpaces both inflation and economic growth. According to the CMS National Health Expenditure Accounts, the $5.3 trillion spent on healthcare in 2024 equates to $15,474 per person — making the United States by far the highest-spending nation in the world on healthcare, spending roughly twice what comparable wealthy nations spend per capita. Hospital care is the single largest category of that spending at $1.634 trillion — 31 cents of every healthcare dollar — and it grew at 8.9% in 2024, the second consecutive year of elevated post-pandemic growth driven by rebounding utilization and rising labor costs. Price growth for hospital care accelerated to 3.4% in 2024 — the fastest rate since 2007 — compounding the already steep trajectory.
What makes these numbers particularly alarming is the long-range trajectory. The CMS projects that national health spending will average 5.8% annual growth through 2033 — consistently outpacing GDP growth of 4.3% — and that healthcare’s share of GDP will reach 20.3% by 2033, up from 18.0% in 2024. This means that by the early 2030s, one in every five dollars produced by the entire US economy will be spent on healthcare. The Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker notes that private insurance per-enrollee spending grew by 96.5% from 2008 to 2024 — nearly double the growth rates for Medicare and Medicaid over the same period — a gap that directly reflects the higher prices private insurers pay to hospitals compared to government programs. Health spending grew from just $74.1 billion in 1970 to the current $5.3 trillion — an increase of more than 70-fold in just 54 years.
Average Hospital Cost Per Day in the US in 2026
📊 Average Hospital Cost Per Day — By Hospital Type (2023–2024 Data)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
National Average (2023) ████████████████████████ $3,130–$3,132
National Average (KFF, 2024) ████████████████████████ $3,297 (adj. inpatient day)
Non-profit Hospitals ████████████████████████ $3,288/day
State / Local Govt Hospitals ████████████████████ $2,857/day
For-Profit Hospitals ██████████████████ $2,529/day
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
2019 National Average ████████████████████ $2,607
2000 (estimated baseline) ████████████ ~$1,100
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━| Hospital Type / Metric | Average Daily Cost | Source / Year |
|---|---|---|
| National average (KFF/AHA, 2023) | $3,130–$3,132 | KFF analysis of AHA data, 2023 |
| National average adjusted inpatient day (2024) | $3,297 | KFF, 2024 AHA survey |
| Non-profit hospital avg per day | $3,288 | KFF / Becker’s, 2023 |
| State / local government hospital avg per day | $2,857 | KFF / Becker’s, 2023 |
| For-profit hospital avg per day | $2,529 | KFF / Becker’s, 2023 |
| HCUP national average per day | $3,086 | HCUP data, SonderCare 2026 |
| National average (2019) | $2,607 | Historical AHA data |
| Cost increase: 2019 to 2023 | +$525/day (+20%) | ConsumerShield 2026 |
| Cost increase: 2000 to 2024 | +184% | SonderCare 2026 |
| Average hospital stay duration | 4.5 days | AHA data |
Source: KFF State Health Facts — Hospital Expenses per Adjusted Inpatient Day (2024); Becker’s Hospital Review (May 2025 & January 2026); ConsumerShield Hospital Stay Cost Report (January 2026); PeopleKeep (December 2025)
The national average hospital cost per day in the US currently stands at $3,130 to $3,297 depending on the methodology — with KFF’s adjusted inpatient day figure coming in at $3,297 for 2024 and the HCUP-based national average sitting at approximately $3,086. These numbers represent a 20% increase between 2019 and 2023 alone — from $2,607 per day to $3,132 — and over the longer span since 2000, daily hospital costs have risen by approximately 184%. Hospital type matters significantly: non-profit hospitals average $3,288/day, considerably more than the $2,529/day at for-profit facilities and $2,857/day at government hospitals. The higher non-profit figure is largely a function of their concentration in academic medical centers, which offer more complex and labor-intensive services. An average US hospital stay of 4.5 days at current rates therefore runs approximately $14,000–$14,800 in total hospital costs before insurance adjustments.
For patients with insurance, these headline numbers translate into very different out-of-pocket realities depending on plan type. A bronze-tier ACA plan may cover only 60% of costs after the deductible is met, while a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) may require the patient to pay the first $2,000–$7,000 before coverage begins at all. According to the Healthcare Cost Institute (HCCI), insured Americans still paid an average of $1,982 out-of-pocket for inpatient stays in 2022 — up 11% from five years earlier. In 2024, the average US employee spent $1,787 before their deductible was met. Uninsured patients face the full billed charge, though hospitals are required under federal law to offer financial assistance programs — and cash-pay patients can often negotiate significant discounts, sometimes 30–50% below the sticker price.
Hospital Cost by State in the US in 2026
📊 Hospital Adjusted Expenses Per Inpatient Day — by State (2024 AHA Data)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MOST EXPENSIVE LEAST EXPENSIVE
California $4,819 Mississippi $1,064–$1,227
Oregon $3,926 Montana (govt) $568
New York $3,894–$4,265 Alabama $1,649–$2,093
New Jersey $2,651–$3,826 South Dakota ~$1,700–$1,800
New Mexico $3,069–$4,192 Arkansas ~$1,700–$1,900
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━| State | Avg Expense Per Inpatient Day (2024) | Hospital Type |
|---|---|---|
| California | $4,819 | Highest in nation (non-profit/all) |
| Oregon | $3,926 | 2nd highest |
| New York (govt) | $3,894 | Among highest |
| New York (non-profit) | $4,265 | Among highest |
| New Jersey (non-profit) | $3,826 | High-cost Northeast |
| New Mexico (for-profit) | $4,192 | High variation |
| Ohio (govt) | $3,983 | Notable high-cost govt hospital |
| Mississippi (non-profit) | $1,227 | Lowest non-profit in nation |
| Mississippi (govt) | $1,481 | Among lowest |
| Montana (govt) | $568 | Absolute lowest single figure |
| Alabama (for-profit) | $1,649 | Among lowest |
| National Average (non-profit) | $3,288 | KFF / AHA 2024 |
| National Average (for-profit) | $2,529 | KFF / AHA 2024 |
Source: Becker’s Payer Issues — “Hospital care expenses per day: A state-by-state breakdown” (January 2026), based on KFF / AHA 2024 Annual Survey data; SonderCare (April 2026)
The state-level variation in US hospital costs is one of the most striking features of the American healthcare system — and the data from the 2024 American Hospital Association Annual Survey, analyzed by KFF and published by Becker’s Payer Issues in January 2026, makes this painfully clear. California’s non-profit hospitals average $4,819 per adjusted inpatient day — the highest in the nation and more than four times what patients in Mississippi face at $1,064–$1,227 per day. Oregon ($3,926), New York ($3,894–$4,265), New Jersey ($3,826), and Ohio ($3,983 for government hospitals) round out the high-cost tier. The difference between the most and least expensive states is not merely statistical — a 4.5-day hospital stay in California at non-profit rates would cost approximately $21,700, while the same stay in Mississippi would cost roughly $5,400: a gap of over $16,000 for identical days of care.
The cost drivers behind these state-level differences are well understood: labor costs — hospital staff salaries are the single largest operating expense — vary dramatically by region, reflecting cost-of-living differences, union contracts, and competitive wage markets in healthcare. California’s hospital costs are inflated by high nurse-to-patient ratios mandated by state law, the highest clinical wages in the country, and some of the most expensive real estate and operating overhead. At the other end, Mississippi and Alabama benefit from lower wage baselines but simultaneously struggle with underfunded infrastructure and higher rates of uncompensated care. The per capita personal health care spending data from CMS shows a similarly wide range nationally — from $7,522 per capita in Utah to $14,007 in New York — confirming that state-level cost variation is a structural feature of the system, not a temporary anomaly.
Average Cost of Common Hospital Procedures in the US in 2026
📊 Average Cost of Common Hospital Procedures — US 2024–2026
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Heart Bypass Surgery ██████████████████████████ $57,128
Heart Attack (inpatient) ████████████████████████ $47,666
Knee/Hip Replacement ████████████████████ $35,263 (national avg)
C-Section █████████████████ $17,004
Appendectomy █████████████ $16,000 (2026 avg)
Gastric Bypass ████████████ $23,000
Gallbladder Removal ██████████ $28,233
Tonsillectomy ████ $4,000–$6,000
Cataract Surgery ███ $3,441–$5,163
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━| Procedure | Average Cost (US, 2024–2026) |
|---|---|
| Heart bypass (CABG) surgery | $57,128 |
| Heart attack hospitalization | $47,666 (national avg) |
| Full knee or hip replacement | $35,263 (national avg) |
| Gallbladder removal (cholecystectomy) | $28,233 |
| Gastric bypass surgery | $23,000 |
| C-section delivery | $17,004 |
| Appendectomy (2026 national avg) | $16,000 |
| Appendectomy with insurance | ~$7,182 out-of-pocket |
| Tonsillectomy | $4,000–$6,000 |
| Cataract surgery (without insurance) | $3,441–$5,163 |
| Laparoscopic appendectomy (range) | $7,000–$20,000 |
| Open appendectomy | $10,000–$35,000 |
| Maternity / newborn admission avg | $14,952 |
Source: Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, Weiss & Paarz Medical Cost Analysis, CostWhale Hospital Cost Guide (2026), AllClinics Hospital Pricing Data, debt.org Hospital Prices & Surgery Costs (May 2025)
The cost of common hospital procedures in the US varies enormously — both by procedure type and by geographic location — creating a situation where the financial stakes of any given surgery depend as much on your zip code as on your diagnosis. Heart bypass (CABG) surgery averages $57,128 nationally — but in Alaska, the same procedure can run nearly $70,000, while in lower-cost states it may come in below $50,000. Heart attack hospitalizations average $47,666 nationally, but in New York they can exceed $65,000 compared to just $27,000 in Baltimore, per Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker data. Appendectomy costs have risen steadily: from a $13,591 average in 2022 to an estimated $16,000 in 2026 — a 17.7% increase over four years per CostWhale’s inflation-adjusted national average drawn from HCUP data and hospital billing records across all 50 states.
A critical distinction that every patient should understand is the gap between the billed charge and the actual paid amount. US hospitals charge an average of $417 for every $100 of actual costs — meaning the headline number on a hospital bill is often four times the real underlying cost. Insurance companies negotiate down from those charges through their contractual rates; uninsured patients are billed at the full rate but can often negotiate significant reductions. For patients with large employer coverage, the average cost of a surgical inpatient admission was $47,345 per Peterson-KFF data — compared to $14,952 for maternity and newborn admissions. The wide variation by procedure makes hospital price transparency tools — mandated under CMS rules since 2021 and strengthened in 2024–2025 with standardized Machine Readable File (MRF) requirements — increasingly valuable for patients who have any window to plan their care in advance.
Hospital Cost Per Person in the US in 2026
📊 Per Capita US Healthcare Spending — By Age Group & Geography (2020–2024)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Age 65+ (2020) ████████████████████████████ $22,356/person
Working-age adults ████████ $9,154/person
Children (0–18, 2020) ███ $4,217/person
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
National avg (2024) ██████████████████████ $15,474/person
New York state (2020) ████████████████████████ $14,007/person
Utah state (2020) █████████████████ $7,522/person
New England region ████████████████████████ $12,728/person
Rocky Mountain region █████████████████ $8,497/person
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━| Per Capita Spending Category | Annual Spend | Source / Year |
|---|---|---|
| National average per capita health spending (2024) | $15,474 | CMS Historical NHE |
| Age 65+ per capita personal health care spending | $22,356 | CMS (2020 data) |
| Working-age adults (19–64) per capita | $9,154 | CMS (2020 data) |
| Children (0–18) per capita | $4,217 | CMS (2020 data) |
| Highest per capita state — New York | $14,007 | CMS (2020 data) |
| Lowest per capita state — Utah | $7,522 | CMS (2020 data) |
| New England region (highest region, 2020) | $12,728 | CMS (2020) |
| Rocky Mountain region (lowest region, 2020) | $8,497 | CMS (2020) |
| Medicare expenditure per beneficiary (highest — Florida) | $13,652 | CMS (2020) |
| Medicare expenditure per beneficiary (lowest — Vermont) | $8,726 | CMS (2020) |
Source: CMS National Health Expenditure Fact Sheet (2024); CMS Health Expenditures by Age, 2020; CMS Health Expenditures by State of Residence, 2020
Healthcare spending per person in the United States tells a story of dramatic age-based inequality in cost distribution. The CMS NHE Fact Sheet reveals that Americans aged 65 and older incur $22,356 per person in personal health care costs — more than five times the $4,217 spent per child and nearly 2.5 times the $9,154 spent per working-age adult. This is the demographic math that underlies the ongoing fiscal pressure on Medicare: as the last Baby Boomers age into the program through 2029, the per-enrollee cost multiplier built into an aging population will continue to push total Medicare spending upward. At the national level, the $15,474 per-person health spend in 2024 is the definitive headline number from CMS — a figure that covers all health services, from hospital care and physician visits to prescription drugs, nursing home care, and administrative overhead.
Geographic variation in per-person spending is equally pronounced. New York’s per capita health spending of $14,007 — 37% above the 2020 national average of $10,191 — reflects high labor costs, extensive Medicaid coverage, and the concentration of complex academic medical center care. Utah’s $7,522 per capita — 26% below the national average — reflects lower-cost labor markets, a younger-than-average population, and fewer high-intensity academic centers. The New England and Mideast regions consistently rank highest in per-capita health spending, while the Rocky Mountain and Southwest regions come in lowest. For Medicare specifically, Florida’s per-beneficiary cost of $13,652 versus Vermont’s $8,726 illustrates how geography shapes even a standardized federal program — primarily driven by the higher utilization and higher-complexity patient populations in Florida’s large retiree community.
Who Pays for Hospital Costs in the US in 2026
📊 US Health Spending — Share by Payer Type (2024)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Federal Government ████████████████████████████ 31%
Households (out-of-pocket) ████████████████████████ 28%
Private Business ████████████████ 18%
State & Local Govts ████████████████ 16%
Other Private Revenues ████████ 6%
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Hospital payers (2024):
Private Health Insurance ████████████████████████ +10.4% YoY
Medicare ██████████████████████ +6.9% YoY ($1.1T total)
Medicaid ████████████████████ +8.5% YoY ($931.7B total)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━| Payer Category | Share / Amount | 2024 Growth |
|---|---|---|
| Federal government share of total NHE | 31% | — |
| Household share (incl. out-of-pocket) | 28% | — |
| Private business share | 18% | — |
| State & local government share | 16% | — |
| Medicare total spending (2024) | $1.1 trillion | +7.8% YoY |
| Medicaid total spending (2024) | $931.7 billion | +6.6% YoY |
| Private health insurance total (2024) | $1.6 trillion | +8.8% YoY |
| Private insurance hospital spending growth | +10.4% | 2024 |
| Insured share of US population (2024) | 91.8% | Down from 92.5% in 2023 |
| Medicaid share of all hospital care spending | ~19% | 2023 |
Source: CMS National Health Expenditure Accounts 2024 Highlights (June 2025); Fierce Healthcare / Health Affairs (June 2025); KFF Medicaid Hospital Analysis (August 2025)
Understanding who actually pays US hospital bills is essential to making sense of why costs behave the way they do. The federal government is the largest single sponsor of healthcare spending at 31% of total national health expenditures — followed by households at 28%, private business at 18%, and state and local governments at 16%. At the hospital level in 2024, private health insurance spending on hospital care surged 10.4% — the fastest growth rate among the major payers — while Medicare grew 6.9% and Medicaid grew 8.5%. The gap between private insurance and Medicare growth rates is economically significant: private insurers have historically paid hospitals 40–60% more than Medicare for the same services, meaning a shift in the insured population toward Medicare — driven by Baby Boomer aging — gradually applies downward pressure on total revenue even as per-beneficiary costs rise.
Medicaid’s role in the hospital system is often underestimated: the program covers approximately 19% of all hospital care spending nationally — and at least one in five hospital inpatient days in nearly every state, per KFF’s August 2025 analysis. The proposed $880 billion in Medicaid cuts currently moving through the legislative process would therefore represent a direct blow to hospital finances across the country, particularly for safety-net hospitals that serve disproportionately large Medicaid populations. The insured share of the population fell slightly from 92.5% in 2023 to 91.8% in 2024 — and CMS projects it will fall further in 2026 as the enhanced ACA Marketplace premium tax credits that expired at end-of-2025 remove millions from coverage, increasing uncompensated care costs that ultimately feed back into higher prices for everyone who is insured.
Hospital Cost Trends & Future Projections in the US in 2026
📊 US Hospital & Health Spending Projections (2025–2033)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2024 NHE Growth ████████████████████████ +8.2% (actual)
2025 NHE Growth █████████████████████ +7.1% (projected)
2026 NHE Growth █████████████████ +5.4% (projected)
2027 NHE Growth ██████████████████ +5.7% (projected)
2028–2033 avg ████████████████ +5.8%/year avg
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Healthcare share of GDP
2022: 17.6% 2024: 18.0% 2033: 20.3% (projected)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━| Year / Metric | NHE Growth / Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 actual NHE growth | +8.2% / $5.3 trillion | CMS, Health Affairs |
| 2025 projected NHE growth | +7.1% | CMS NHE Projections |
| 2026 projected NHE growth | +5.4% | CMS / Health Affairs |
| 2027 projected NHE growth | +5.7% | CMS NHE Projections |
| Average NHE growth (2024–2033) | 5.8% per year | CMS |
| Healthcare % of GDP (2022) | 17.6% | CMS |
| Healthcare % of GDP (2024) | 18.0% | CMS |
| Healthcare % of GDP (2033, projected) | 20.3% | CMS |
| Hospital price growth (2024) | +3.4% — highest since 2007 | CMS NHE Highlights |
| Hospital spending growth (2025, projected) | Moderating from 2023–24 highs | CMS NHE Projections |
Source: CMS NHE Projections 2024–2033 (released via Health Affairs, June 2025); CMS NHE Historical Data (June 2025); Medical Economics (2025)
The trajectory of US hospital costs over the coming decade is upward, but with moderation expected in the near term. According to the CMS NHE Projections 2024–2033, published in Health Affairs in June 2025, total national health spending is projected to grow 7.1% in 2025 before decelerating to 5.4% in 2026 and 5.7% in 2027 — partly due to the expiration of Inflation Reduction Act premium tax credits at end of 2025, which will reduce the insured population and dampen healthcare utilization. Hospital price growth of 3.4% in 2024 — the highest rate since 2007 — is expected to ease as post-pandemic labor market pressures normalize. Over the full 2024–2033 projection period, average annual growth is expected to settle at 5.8% — still outpacing both general inflation and GDP growth every single year.
The most consequential long-term trend is the relentless growth in healthcare’s share of the economy. At 18.0% of GDP in 2024 — and projected to reach 20.3% by 2033 — healthcare is crowding out other national investments in education, infrastructure, and social programs at a pace that most health economists regard as fiscally unsustainable. Hospital price growth outpacing inflation by 3–4 times per year over multiple decades is the central engine of this dynamic. Short of structural reforms — including expanded price negotiation, site-neutral payment policies that eliminate the hospital premium for outpatient procedures, or a shift toward global budgeting models — the trajectory embedded in current CMS projections suggests that by 2033, the average American will be spending the equivalent of more than $19,000 per year on healthcare, making the cost of hospital care one of the most consequential domestic policy challenges of the decade.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
