Report: Rise in health care spending lowest on record

[Redfairen]

Source: USA Today

Health care spending since the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act has risen by 1.3% a year, the lowest rate ever recorded, and health care inflation is the lowest it has been in 50 years, a report released Wednesday by the White House shows.

An economy hobbled by the recession and 2008 economic crisis played a role in some of the reduced spending growth, officials said, but the report cited "structural change" caused, in part, by the law.

......

Because of cost reductions, the Congressional Budget Office reduced Medicare and Medicaid spending projections in 2020 by $147 billion since 2010, the report noted.

The lower increases in spending as the economy has recovered is a sign the changes are structural, said Jason Furman, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Prices remain low, he said, and Medicare spending, which he said doesn't typically reflect trends, remains low.



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2013/11/20/health-care-spending-growth/3650243/

[Stuart G]

1. Proud to be one of the first to K and R this ... and

I wonder if the MSM will give this as much coverage as it has given some "computer glitches." What do you think?

[Iliyah]

3. NOPE and NO

corporate media is still harping on every single crump of anything negative, ahem . . . GOP's talking points.

[louis-t]

2. Suck on that, repugs!

Yet all the media is focusing on is the 'feud' between Obama and Clinton.

[OneCrazyDiamond]

4. I believe they call that

bending the cost curve. Now who was talking about doing just that?

[jtuck004]

6. Good Question...

"There’s plenty of fodder for fact-checkers in Sen. Ted Cruz’s looong attack on Obamacare, and in President Obama’s defense of it. "

Here.

...
The Kaiser Family Foundation analyzed the trend and determined that the economy was responsible for 77 percent of the slow growth rate. Plus, the study said, the rate of growth is expected to increase as the economy continues to pick up.

KFF study, April 2013: Based on statistical analysis of 50 years of health spending and economic trends, the study finds that the economy, including factors such as Gross Domestic Product growth and inflation, produces a major but delayed effect on the nation’s health spending. This effect stretches over a period of six years, meaning that the recession that ended in 2009 will continue to dampen health care spending for several more years and that spending will increase gradually as the economy strengthens.

The slower growth also began in 2009, before the law was signed.

In 2011, experts at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services pointed to the economy as the reason for slower growth in spending: “Job losses caused many people to lose employer-sponsored health insurance and, in some cases, to forgo health-care services they could not afford.”
...

On the other hand, since the biggest portion of the economy that is strengthening is the amount of assets the wealthy are pocketing, the coming increase may not be that much, since we will be burying the rest of us. And that's cheaper.

[Bill USA]

5. Great news.

BTW, has anyone here ever gotten a comment to appear on USA Today's site? Do you have to be a tea-bagger idiot to get you comment to appear?

[TomCADem]

7. K & R!

Watch the cable news bury this as they read off of the Frank Lutz talking points.

[Stuart G]

8. Kick again.....very important....nt