Within the next ten years, U.S. healthcare spending is expected to hit $5.2 trillion, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Wednesday.
As baby boomers become eligible for Medicare and the economy improves, healthcare spending will reach nearly one-fifth of the economy. In 2012, healthcare spending made up just 17.2 percent.
For the past five years, annual growth has stayed below 4 percent. From 2015-2023, spending is expected to rise 6 percent each year.
"The acceleration … is commensurate with projected economic growth," Andrea Sisko, an economist in the CMS Office of the Actuary, told the Hill.
"A demographic shift is also occurring over that period of time with baby boomers coming into Medicare."
The shift coincides with the expansion of Obamacare, which will also raise spending. To top it off, expensive new medications to treat hepatitis C are expected to speed up spending in the short term.
While healthcare inflation has recently been in line with economic growth, it will soon outpace it.