Levels, Growth, And Semantics: The Role Of Prices In Driving Health Care Spending Michael E. Chernew

https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/levels-growth-and-semantics-role-prices-driving-health-care-spending On January 15, 2026, I published a Forefront commentary about a paper published in Health Affairs by Micah Hartman and colleagues at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) analyzing the drivers of growth in the 2024 national health expenditures (NHE). I titled that commentary: “Growth In National Health Expenditures: It’s Not The Prices, Stupid,” which many readers will recognize as a play on the title of a seminal piece by Gerard Anderson and coauthors examining high health care spending in the US.