Increases in private employers' health care spending might start to slow, a little, in 2027.
Federal government forecasters are predicting the U.S. private employers' spending on their share of health insurance premiums and self-funded plan costs will increase 4.6% between 2026 and 2027, to $905 billion.
Average employer spending might rise 4.9%, to an average of $9,627 for each of the 180 million plan participants.
Health care spending experts at the Office of the Actuary, an arm of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, have published those figures in tables released along with the latest National Health Expenditures projections.
The newest health expenditure figures are based on actual cost data estimates are for 2024. The period in the projections runs from 2025 through 2034.
The forecasters think that private-sector employers' overall spending on health benefits increased 8.6% in 2025 and 5.8% this year.
By 2034, employer spending on health benefits could rise to $1.2 trillion.
What it means: If the government forecasters are correct, employers' health benefits spending increases could be a little lower next year than they were this year.
The data: The Centers for Medicare & Medicare Services — the agency that runs Medicare, Medicaid and HealthCare.gov — gathers historical health care spending data and creates spending forecasts to help managers at CMS and other government agencies keep track of the U.S. health care sector and run government health care programs.
The Internal Revenue Service, for example, bases the annual inflation adjustments for some programs on the health expenditures tables.
The big picture: The CMS health expenditures team thinks that overall U.S. national health expenditures will increase 4.6% between this year and 2027, to $6.3 trillion.
U.S. gross domestic product, or total national income, could increase 3.6%, to $18.3 trillion, and health expenditures may account for about 18.8% of U.S. gross domestic product, up from 18.7% of $17.5 trillion in GDP this year.
The crystal ball: One question is whether the CMS forecasters have a good crystal ball. One way is to look at how the team's last projected figure compares with the actual figure.
In 2024, the team predicted that overall 2023 health spending would turn out to be $4.8 trillion and employers' spending on health benefits would be $654 billion.
Total 2023 spending turned out to be 2.6% higher than the team predicted. Employers' spending was 8.4% higher than the team predicted.
Last year, the team predicted that overall 2024 spending would be $5.3 trillion and employers' spending would be $747 billion.
Actual total 2024 spending was $5.3 trillion, or 0.3% higher than expected. Employers' actual spending was $753 billion, or 0.8% higher than expected.
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