What Changed?
This Week’s Briefing: The public inflation conversation keeps drifting toward falling goods prices and louder retail discounting. But one of the most labor-heavy corners of the economy is still running hot: healthcare.
The December 2025 CPI shows medical care services up 3.5% over the past 12 months, with hospital services up 6.6%. That’s not a rounding error inside services inflation—it’s a reminder that “sticky” doesn’t always mean rent.
The tension is that employers can feel healthcare inflation even when shoppers see cheaper stuff on shelves. Premiums reset annually, contracts reprice on multi-year cycles, and utilization is a volume story, not just a price story.
Forget Amazon’s 1997 IPO… This Could Be 287 Times Bigger
Early investors who bought shares during Amazon’s 1997 IPO have had the chance to make a fortune.
In fact, Amazon has climbed more than 255,000% in the time since – enough to turn a $100 bill into more than $250,000!
But if you missed out, don’t kick yourself…
According to a report from Capital.com, Elon Musk could be gearing up to take his internet satellite giant, called Starlink, public… in what Fortune magazine says will be the biggest IPO in history!
And here’s the kicker…
With an estimated value of more than $100 billion, that means Starlink’s potential IPO could be a staggering 287 times bigger than Amazon’s 1997 IPO.
It’ll also be 55 times bigger than Apple’s IPO, 128 times bigger than Microsoft’s IPO, and 177 times bigger than Nvidia’s IPO, to name just a few.
But that’s not all…
For the first time ever, James Altucher – one of the world’s top venture capitalists – is sharing how ANYONE can get a pre-IPO stake in Starlink… with as little as $100!
That means you have the first-ever chance to skip the line, and position yourself BEFORE the IPO takes place.
The Numbers
CPI medical care services: +3.5% year over year (Dec 2025)
CPI hospital services: +6.6% year over year (Dec 2025)
PCE health care services price index: about +2.8% year over year (Q3 2025 vs. Q3 2024)
Employer-sponsored family premium: $26,993 in 2025, +6% vs. 2024
National health expenditures: +7.2% in 2024 to $5.3 trillion; hospital spending +8.9% and physician/clinical services +8.1%
Mercer survey: total employer health benefit cost per employee +6.0% in 2025; +6.7% projected for 2026
Why It Matters
Healthcare behaves like the “next services problem” because it bundles three inflation-friendly ingredients: high labor intensity, persistent utilization, and reimbursement systems that often lag—then catch up in batches.
First, healthcare is wage-sensitive. Hospitals, clinics, and home health providers can’t substitute away from skilled labor the way a retailer can swap suppliers. When staffing is tight, higher wages flow quickly into unit costs.
Second, utilization is rising in ways that don’t show up as a single price tag. More visits, more procedures, and more chronic-condition management can lift total spend even if per-service price growth cools.
Third, reimbursement and contracting dynamics can keep pressure on margins and budgets. Employers and insurers tend to reset prices on a schedule, which can make healthcare inflation feel “late” and then suddenly unavoidable—exactly when other categories are calming down.
For markets, this matters in two places. Corporate margins get squeezed via benefit costs just as wage growth normalizes. And for macro watchers, healthcare is a channel where “services disinflation” can stall even if goods stay tame.
Takeaway
When the inflation narrative leans too heavily on what’s getting cheaper at the store, it can miss where costs are compounding quietly. Healthcare doesn’t need to spike to matter; it only needs to keep climbing steadily, because it sits inside both household budgets and employer payroll math.
— Lauren
Editor, American Ledger
Resources
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2026
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2026
https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, January 2026
https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-reports/national-health-expenditure-data/nhe-fact-sheet
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) / BEA, January 2026
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DHLCRG3Q086SBEA
