Healthy Marketplace Index

Health care spending in the United States is on the rise and accounts for nearly 18% of US economic activity. While policymakers continue to explore the contributors to this phenomenon at the national level, differing local trends add complexity - but critical detail - to the picture of how health care dollars are spent across the country.

We analyzed more than 1.8 billion health care claims for people with commercial insurance from 2012 to 2016. We computed measures of health care service prices and use, and other measures such as provider market structure for 112 local areas in 43 states. We found that not only did spending trends and drivers vary substantially across metro areas, they varied within metro areas when we segmented the data into categories of services like inpatient, outpatient, and physician services. In short, each metro had a different experience.

This report explores these varying trends in order to better understand their sources. Use our interactive maps and charts to investigate and compare drivers of health care spending.