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Health care spending growth in the United States may be settling back into pre-pandemic patterns, a new federal analysis of 2022 health expenditures suggests. Medicare actuaries said slower spending growth last year stemmed from the end of the federal government's COVID-19 relief payments, which caused health spending to spike in 2020. (Goldman, 12/14)

The estimated healthcare spending per person in the United States stood at about $13,493 in 2022. Personal healthcare spending on hospital care, dental, clinical and physician services slowed down in the year, while non-personal expenses accelerated, driven by a turnaround in the net cost of insurance. Medicaid spending surged 9.6%, reaching $805.7 billion, and private health insurance spending grew 5.9%, totaling $1.3 trillion. Medicare spending rose 5.9% to $944.3 billion. (12/13)

Notably, the number of uninsured individuals has declined for three straight years with the insured population rate reaching 92%, or 26.6 million individuals uninsured. (Tong, 12/13)

President Biden will travel to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland on Thursday to deliver remarks highlighting how a signature piece of legislation is capping prescription drug costs. Biden will make the short trip to Bethesda to announce that dozens of pharmaceutical companies will be required to pay rebates to Medicare because they raised drug prices faster than the rate of inflation. (Samuels, 12/14)

If enough evidence didn't already exist that pharmacy benefit managers are the target of the year on Capitol Hill, taking the old advice to follow the money confirms it: Legislation about the drug supply middlemen has been the most heavily lobbied in 2023. According to federal data compiled by OpenSecrets, seven of the 11 most-lobbied bills during the first three quarters largely focus on curbing PBM business practices and promoting lower prescription drug prices. (McAuliff, 12/13)