Today's blog post is another attempt to show that investors have a potential long-term remedy for mitigating rising health care costs – owning health care stocks.

As indicated in the chart, from 2007 through 2016, the annual percentage rise in U.S. health expenditures ranged from 2.9% (2013) to 6.5% (2007). There were no years in which costs fell.  

Over that same period, the S&P 500 Health Care Index posted a cumulative total return of 149.68%, or an average annual return of 9.57%, according to Bloomberg. This period included a 22.8% decline in 2008 and 2.7% decline in 2016.

In 2016 (most recent year for data), U.S. health care spending rose 4.3% to $3.34 trillion, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. 

Out-of-pocket health care costs for consumers rose 3.9% in 2016, the fastest growth rate since 2007, according to The Washington Post. It also points out that 29% of people who were getting insurance through their employer in 2016 were enrolled in high-deductible plans, up from 20% in 2014. Deductibles rose by 12% in 2016, compared to just a 7% hike in 2014.

Rising health care costs is an ongoing problem in need of some long-term solutions. Perhaps one of them might be to invest in the very companies that are raising said prices.