Medical Care CPI

The Bureau of Labor Statistics medical care index follows the prices of doctor visits, hospital care, prescription drugs, medical supplies and health insurance for people in U.S. cities and suburbs. In August 2026 those prices were 1.6% higher than a year earlier. The yearly rate is down from 3.5% in August 2025. It was 1.7% a month earlier, in July 2026. On our seasonally adjusted measure, it is the lowest yearly rate since February 2024.

The yearly rate has slowed from a year earlier for three straight months.

A rate above zero means medical care prices are above where they were a year earlier, even in a month when the rate slows. The yearly rate was below zero from July through October 2023. Healthcare Inflation Premium sets this rate against CPI Inflation Rate (All Items) month by month.

Services make up about 82 percent of the index's weight and drugs and supplies about 18 percent (December 2025). Each price is the full amount paid to the provider, the insurer's share included, so the index is not what patients pay out of pocket. Health insurance is not priced from premiums: BLS uses insurers' retained earnings, on data about 10 months old. Prescription Drug CPI tracks the drug part on its own.

We compute the yearly change from the seasonally adjusted index, meaning BLS has removed the usual calendar swings. BLS headlines the 12-month change from the unadjusted index, so its figure can differ slightly. BLS changed how it prices health insurance from October 2023 and began using insurance claims data for doctor and outpatient hospital prices from October 2024, so comparisons across those dates compare different methods for those parts. There is no figure for October 2025, when the federal government shutdown stopped data collection. The index covers urban consumers, over 90 percent of the U.S. population.