The Size of Medicare (Nationally) in the U.S.
For the whole US, Medicare enrolls 64 million people. Of those, 9.1 million are on Medicare due to a disability, 16% of the Medicare population. Another 500,000 are on Medicare due to End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Medicare accounts for 4% of the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or around $780 billion dollars, making it the second most expensive Federal program. (Social Security, at about one trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) per year.
The average total cost per Medicare beneficiary is $12,187 per year. Of that, beneficiaries pay an average of $170.10 per month, or $2041,20, for Part B in 2022 and pay an additional average of ca. $6,000 out of pocket, for a total of around $8100. A very good private insurance plan, in contrast, would cost around $26,000 per year.
Medicare accounted for 20 percent of total national health spending, 30 percent of spending on retail sales of prescription drugs, 25 percent of spending on hospital care, and 23 percent of spending on physician services in 2017.
