New Data Show Retail Medicine Prices Fell in 2019

January 14, 2021

In 2019, retail prescription medicine prices declined by 0.4%, on average, according to National Health Expenditures (NHE) data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published recently in Health Affairs. While retail prescription medicine spending grew 5.7% that same year, this increase was due to more patients getting the medicines they need, not higher prices.

Other key findings include:

In 7 of the last 10 years, retail medicine spending grew more slowly than total health care spending and spending on retail medicines accounted for less than 10% of total health care spending growth over the past decade.

Since 2000, retail medicine spending has grown, on average, 3.9% per year, below the average annual growth rate of spending on hospital care (4.5%) and total health care spending (4.3%).
Hospital spending increased 6.2% in 2019 reaching $1.2 trillion and continuing to account for nearly one third of total health care spending.