August 2023 Health Sector Economic Indicators Briefs

Altarum's monthly Health Sector Economic Indicators (HSEI) briefs analyze the most recent data available on health sector spending, prices, employment, and utilization. Support for this work is provided by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Below are highlights from the August 2023 briefs.

Health spending as a percent of GDP has stabilized at 17.5% 

• In June 2023, national health spending grew by 5.0%, year over year, and now represents 17.5% of GDP, equal to the average percent of GDP for the previous 12 months. 
• Nominal GDP in June 2023 was 5.8% higher than in June 2022, and grew 0.8 percentage points faster than health spending.
• Neglecting government subsidies, spending on personal health care in June increased by 8.1%, year over year, and by 7.3% when subsidies are included, exceeding the GDP growth rate for the fifth consecutive month.
• Neglecting government subsidies, year-over-year spending on home health care (12.2%) and nursing home care (12.0%) grew fastest in June, while physician and clinical services spending increased the least (6.9%) among major categories.
• Personal health care growth (neglecting government subsidies), which continues to be dominated by growth in utilization rather than price increases, has slowed somewhat in the past 4 months.

Health care price growth and economywide inflation finally converge

• The overall Health Care Price Index (HCPI) increased by 2.7% year over year in July, slowing 0.1 percentage points from the slightly revised rate in June (2.8%). 
• For the first time in over two years, health care price growth exceeded overall inflation as economywide price growth (measured by the GDP Deflator) fell to 2.6% in June, its lowest growth rate since March 2021.
• In new data for July, overall year-over-year CPI growth actually increased slightly to 3.2%, the first increase in its growth rate since June 2022, driven primarily by changes in commodities price growth.
• Among the major health care categories, prices for nursing home care (5.5%) and dental care (5.1%) grew fastest, while physician and clinical services (0.7%) price growth was the slowest in July.
• Year-over-year growth in hospital prices paid by private payers fell nearly 2.5 percentage points over the past two months (from 6.1% in May to 3.7% in July), beginning to converge with public payer price growth. In July, growth in Medicare and Medicaid hospital prices reached 2.6% and 2.3% growth respectively. 
• Our implicit measure of health care utilization growth declined in June, up 4.5% year over year, and down somewhat from slightly revised data (4.9% growth) a month prior.

Health care adds 63,000 jobs in July, the largest increase since July 2022

• Health care added 63,000 jobs in July 2023, exceeding the average of 43,700 jobs added per month for the first 6 months of the year and the largest monthly increase in the past year. 
• July’s health sector job growth was led by growth in ambulatory care settings, which added 35,400 jobs, followed by hospitals, which added 16,100 jobs. 
• Nursing and residential care facilities added 11,500 jobs in July, with growth occurring in both nursing homes (6,300 jobs) and other nursing and residential care settings (5,200 jobs).
• The economy added 187,000 jobs in July, somewhat below the 12-month average of 280,200 jobs. The unemployment rate, at 3.5%, changed little in July.
• Health care wage growth in June 2023 was 3.7% year over year, somewhat below the total private sector wage growth of 4.4%. 
• Wage growth in health care settings is now highest in nursing and residential care, at 4.8% year over year in June 2023. Wage growth in hospitals was 4.3%, while wage growth in ambulatory care settings was 3.0% in June.