Health spending in U.S. to rise 5.8 percent a year through 2025: CMS

Healthcare spending in the United States will likely grow by an average 5.8 percent per year over the next decade, a bit faster than the past two years, due to an aging population, rising medical prices and faster economic growth, according to updated projections from the federal government released on Wednesday. The annual growth of health expenditures between 2015 and 2025 will be 1.3 percentage points faster than growth in gross domestic product, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said in a report published in the independent journal, Health Affairs. Health spending rose 2.9 percent in 2013, according to the study, but rose 5.3 percent in 2014 and is expected to have risen 5.5 percent in 2015 largely as a result of millions of Americans gaining insurance coverage in 2014 under the federal Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.