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Numbers tell a bigger story.

U.S. FEDERAL SPENDING · FUNCTION 570

Medicare

Health coverage for eligible people. Follow the spending and understand what it includes.

Numbers tell a bigger story.

Week starts Monday · YTD starts January 1 · UTC. All-time history is not yet available.

WN Estimate

ESTIMATED SPENDING · YTD

$877,774,010,706

$34,013 per second · YTD, UTC

Selected range uses a constant historical pace, not actual payments recorded during this week, month or year.

REPORTED NET OUTLAYS$1,072,626,018,8692025-10-01 – 2026-09-30

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Where Medicare spending goes

Follow the care, health plans and services funded by Medicare.

Calendar-year 2025 gross Medicare expenditures. Service categories differ from Treasury net outlays in period and accounting basis.

Baseline: Calendar year 2025 · Official historical observations

8 categories

Private health plans

#1 · MEDICARE · CARE & OPERATIONS

WN Estimate
Estimated spending · YTD$434,457,316,983Historical pace · USD, UTC

Hospitals

#2 · MEDICARE · CARE & OPERATIONS

WN Estimate
Estimated spending · YTD$194,519,691,555Historical pace · USD, UTC

Prescription drugs

#3 · MEDICARE · CARE & OPERATIONS

WN Estimate
Estimated spending · YTD$148,119,748,303Historical pace · USD, UTC

Other care

#4 · MEDICARE · CARE & OPERATIONS

WN Estimate
Estimated spending · YTD$105,075,003,768Historical pace · USD, UTC

Physician services

#5 · MEDICARE · CARE & OPERATIONS

WN Estimate
Estimated spending · YTD$59,247,899,321Historical pace · USD, UTC

Skilled nursing facilities

#6 · MEDICARE · CARE & OPERATIONS

WN Estimate
Estimated spending · YTD$25,123,073,331Historical pace · USD, UTC

Home health care

#7 · MEDICARE · CARE & OPERATIONS

WN Estimate
Estimated spending · YTD$13,584,463,104Historical pace · USD, UTC

Administration

#8 · MEDICARE · CARE & OPERATIONS

WN Estimate
Estimated spending · YTD$10,065,596,155Historical pace · USD, UTC

How these numbers work

The seven benefit categories and administration are separate lines in CMS Table II.B1. Medicare Advantage payments are not added again to the fee-for-service categories. Rounded service rows total $1210.0 billion versus the reported $1210.1 billion. Differences within source rounding precision are preserved. These are gross program expenditures, before the offsets used in Treasury net outlays.

Running amounts apply a constant historical pace: the reported amount divided by every second in Calendar year 2025, multiplied by elapsed time in the selected range. They illustrate the flow; they do not track actual transactions today. Week starts Monday and YTD starts January 1, in UTC. Dollar increments show motion, not dollar-level measurement accuracy.

“Reported period” restores the original source amounts. This pace model freezes at 2028-01-01 unless a newer official snapshot is imported. These program snapshots have their own reporting periods and coverage, which differ from the national Treasury budget-function counter.

Official sources, versions & audit trail
CMS · 2026 Medicare Trustees Report, Table II.B1 ↗

2026 report · actual calendar-year 2025 expenditures · Released 2026-06-09
Retrieved 2026-10-26 · Archived source

Version: official-medicare-2025-bb5cd08c956c. Source-file SHA-256 checksums, original observations and the model are included in the audit download. Illustrative images are AI-generated and do not identify actual recipients, facilities or contract work.

Download data & audit

What does medicare include?

BEHIND THE NUMBER

Medicare provides health insurance primarily for people age 65 and older and certain younger people with disabilities. This category is separate from the broader Health budget function.

  • Hospital insurance
  • Medical insurance
  • Prescription drug coverage

These topics describe the full budget category. Available breakdowns on this page cover only the programs and reporting periods identified alongside them.

Read the congressional category definitions ↗

How to read this number

Spending and debt answer different questions. This page shows spending within one federal budget function. The national debt is the accumulated outstanding balance of federal borrowing, not a sum of these category counters.

Source, calculation & original data

Source: U.S. Treasury, Monthly Treasury Statement, Table 9. Retrieved 2026-10-26. Reported total: $1,072,626,018,869.

Rate = reported amount ÷ 31,536,000 seconds in the reporting period. Estimated ranges apply this historical average to elapsed seconds since midnight today, Monday, the first of the month, or January 1 (UTC). These are modeled totals, not measured weekly, monthly or calendar-year outlays. The reported-period view shows the original published total. Estimates stop 45 days after the reporting period ends. Negative net outlays remain static.

Funds approved by law and actual outlays differ in timing and scope. This page does not claim to show a new congressional appropriation.

Treasury source ↗ · Download original data