The annual growth in the nation’s health care spending appears to be returning to pre-pandemic trends, according to a new report from analysts at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The report was published online Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs.
In the four years before 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, health care spending rose 4.2% to 4.6% a year, according to CMS.
While last year’s increase was higher than the 3.2% growth in health spending in 2021, it was less than half the 10.6% growth of health spending in 2020.