Federal health care spending has reached a historic turning point. It is now the single largest category of federal expenditures, having surpassed other spending categories including Social Security, national defense, and interest payments made to chip away at the national debt. If current trajectories hold, health care will be eating up an enormous share of the country’s spending for years to come.
The government is on track to spend over $26 trillion on major health programs through 2036, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s review of the country’s most recent fiscal outlook, published Wednesday.
