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Prescription drug price trend for 2026 will be between 10% and 12% according to the 2026 Trend Study from HUB International, a global insurance and financial services firm.

Here’s HUB’s line chart of the combined medical and Rx trend, illustrating nearly double trend growth since 2022 following the peak of 10.1% (combined) in 201 as patients returned to health care services and encounters when feeling safe in the fading out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That precipitous low-point in 2022 of 3.4% was the peak of the coronavirus stay-at-home period, representing the “medical distancing” felt across U.S. health care providers.

Assessing line items for employers’ health care benefit spending, we see that Rx Only growth is expected between 10-12%, followed by that combined Medical + Rx (8-10%), Medical Only at 7-9%, Dental 4-5%, and Vision 2-3%.

What’s driving trend up into double-digits are,

• Increased utilization, with HUB pointing to the continued consumer return-to-healthcare post-pandemic
• Greater demand expressed for mental health and substance use services
• High-cost prescription drugs, namely hockey-stick growth for GLP-1s on- and off-label uses, and the growing adoption of specialty drugs in general
• Deteriorating population health for some patient claims, especially with mental health and co-morbidities of chronic conditions, and
• General price inflation — in health care pushing upward labor costs (keep thinking nursing and allied health professionals).

What pushes up always has opposite forces at work — in the case of health care price trend “deflators,” consider,

• Drug cost levers such as biosimilars adoption and GLP1 drug management (e.g., more restrictive coverage)
• Site-of-care optimization, migrating from higher-cost (e.g., inpatient) settings to outpatient and hospital-to-home
• Effective medical and risk management (but caution [JSK add] based on scrutiny of aggressive prior authorization denials).

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  Looking to 2026 and beyond, HUB International warns that “multiple cost drivers” are driving up both medical and Rx costs — don’t underestimate the importance of a sicker population as well as the costs-of-care specifically labor expenses (post-COVID human capital costs) as well as the impact of medical supplies — and for that, tariffs’ pressures on these costs will exact higher prices and, potentially, supply shortages for, say, generic drugs exported from India or our old friends in the “PPE” category (disposable supplies like gloves and masks coming from China).

All of the employer benefit consultant reports I’ve been sharing with you over the past few months point to higher costs for companies in 2026: it is what it is, whether the trend is calculated closer to 8% or higher at 12%. In all cases, we must expect, for planning purposes, that Rx and medical trend cost growth will find some portion shifted as financial risk and out-of-pocket spending on consumers: the worker, her family, the household.

At the same time, s/he is facing higher costs for groceries, higher prices on utilities (entering cold winter and heating costs, for example), greater costs for toys and appliances, and even for auto parts for those enterprising consumers who can DIY auto fixes in home garages.

It’s not a new phenomenon that health care costs can crowd out other household spending: the first post kicking off Health Populi over Labor Day weekend 2007 was about the cost of health care relative to the price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. But 18 years later, we still haven’t taken the steps to tame health care cost inflation.

The post Expect Double-Digit Prescription Drug Trend Increases in 2026 – The Update from HUB International appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.