Last week, the econowonks at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2017 National Health Expenditure (NHE) data. Links below.
For 2017, drug spending grew by a mere 0.4%—significantly below the growth of spending on hospitals, physician services, and overall national healthcare costs. These latest CMS data confirm the drug spending slowdown that I have highlighted in previous Drug Channels articles.
Too many people—including politicians, journalists, and a certain billionaire—have committed to a false narrative of “skyrocketing” drug spending. Hmm, I don’t recall any of them ranting about “hospital prices” or “physician salaries”—two categories that together account for six times as much healthcare spending as outpatient drugs. Perhaps that's because despite the aggregate spending disparity, consumers (voters) spend a lot more out-of-pocket on pharmaceuticals than what they spend out-of-pocket on hospital care.
Alas, I must again note that demonizing pharmaceuticals as the prime driver of U.S. healthcare spending is simply false. See what you think.
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