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. | In other words, the amount of wealth that could be up for grabs during Starlink's IPO will be nothing short of mind-boggling. | 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 | KFF, October 2025
https://www.kff.org/health-costs/2025-employer-health-benefits-survey/ | Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) / BEA, January 2026
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DHLCRG3Q086SBEA |
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