Charlie Bilello, the chief market strategist at Creative Planning, has sharply criticized official government inflation data, calling its calculation for health insurance “absurd” and “clearly wrong.”
Government Reports 18% Price Drop, But Bilello Points To 26% Rise
During his “The Week in Charts” show, Bilello highlighted a stark contradiction between government claims and the financial reality American families face, arguing that when it comes to health costs, “costs only go in one direction, that’s up.”
The core of the issue, Bilello explained, is a government statistic claiming health insurance prices have fallen 18% over the last five years. He directly contrasted this with new data from KFF, a health policy research organization.
“If you look at this chart, you know, health insurance costs only go in one direction, that’s up,” Bilello said. “So, they’re actually up 26% over the last 5 years [while] the government is saying they’re down 18%.”
See Also: Fed Has Green Light To Cut Rates After Soft Inflation, Economists Say
Government Looking At Insurer Profits Vs Customer Premiums
Bilello described the government’s methodology as “absolutely insane,” noting that it relies on insurer profits rather than the actual premiums paid by consumers.
“They should not be looking at retained earnings for health insurance companies to determine what the cost of health insurance is,” he argued. “They should be looking at what the cost of health insurance is to determine that.”
Data Fails To Capture $27,000 Cost Of Family Health Insurance
The KFF data he cited shows the average family health insurance premium has hit a “stunning number” of nearly $27,000 per year, a 365% increase from just under $6,000 in 1999.
This flawed government data, Bilello warned, creates a misleading picture of overall inflation and erodes public trust.
“It really begs the question, how much higher is inflation than what the government is telling us?” Bilello concluded. “It’s hard to trust the government statistics when they continue to put out this type of data that is clearly wrong.”
Most Health Insurers Have Declined In 2025
Here’s a list of publicly traded health insurers’ performance this year.
| Health Insurers | YTD Performance | One Year Performance |
| UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) | -28.15% | -35.87% |
| CVS Health Corp. (NYSE:CVS) | 85.28% | 42.83% |
| Elevance Health Inc. (NYSE:ELV) | -6.42% | -17.95% |
| Cigna Group (NYSE:CI) | 9.94% | -4.17% |
| Humana Inc. (NYSE:HUM) | 15.04% | 11.32% |
| Centene Corp. (NYSE:CNC) | -43.70% | -44.74% |
UnitedHealth maintains a stronger price trend over the medium and short terms, but a weak trend in the long term. UNH has a moderate value ranking, as per Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings. Additional performance details for other insurers are available here.
On Monday, the futures of the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq 100 indices were trading higher.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the S&P 500 index ended 0.79% higher at 6,791.69, whereas the Nasdaq 100 index rose 1.04% to 25,358.16. On the other hand, Dow Jones advanced 1.01% to end at 47,207.12.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo courtesy: Shutterstock
