CMS: Medical research spending may be rising

The United States may be investing a little more on noncommercial medical research this year than government forecasters had originally expected.

The analysts at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) who create the country’s National Health Expenditure (NHE) projections now believe that noncommercial U.S. medical research spending will increase 1.9 percent this year, to $46.7 billion, according to an NHE paper published in Health Affairs, a peer-reviewed health finance journal.

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A year ago, the CMS analysts were predicting that medical research spending would fall 1.7 percent, to $46.4 billion.

If the analysts are correct and research spending increases to $46.7 billion, research funding will still be lower than it was in 2012. In 2012, the United States invested about $48 billion in noncommercial medical research.