Concentration of Healthcare Expenditures and Selected Characteristics of High Spenders, U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 2019

Data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) indicate that in 2019, spending on healthcare for the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population surpassed $2 billion, yet the majority of this spending was concentrated in a small percentage of the population. About 14 percent of the U.S. population had no personal healthcare expenditures in 2019, while 5 percent accounted for nearly half of healthcare spending. This spending includes all sources of payment for medical care, including payments by private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, out-of-pocket spending, and other sources. In this Statistical Brief, data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component (MEPS-HC) are used to describe the overall concentration of healthcare expenditures across the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population in 2019. The most commonly treated conditions among top spenders are identified, and the shares of spending by age groups, race/ethnicity, type of medical service, and source of payment are illustrated. All differences discussed in the text are statistically significant at the 0.05 level.