Medicare Spending: Where Your Tax Dollars Go
Breaking down how Medicare dollars are distributed across procedures and specialties.
Medicare is the largest single payer for healthcare in America, covering over 65 million beneficiaries. In 2023, the data we analyzed covers 1.81B services across 4,430 procedure codes.
Where the Money Goes
The bulk of Medicare spending goes to a relatively small number of high-volume procedures: office visits, lab tests, and imaging. But the most expensive individual procedures — surgeries, cancer treatments, and specialty drugs — account for an outsized share per service.
The Efficiency Question
Understanding where Medicare dollars flow is essential for evaluating whether taxpayers are getting good value. The data shows enormous variation in what different providers charge for the same procedure — sometimes by factors of 10x or more within the same state.
Price transparency is a critical first step. When patients and policymakers can see what things actually cost, it creates pressure for more rational pricing.