STAT+: U.S. health spending rose sharply in 2025, thanks to GLP-1 use and more care

Article excerpt

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. 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 pers