Obama Ends Era Of Meteoric Healthcare Spending Growth

Bank on it!

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"Obamacare: Where's The Train Wreck?"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/01/wheres-train-wreck.html

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3. The end of an era of meteoric health-care spending growth?

Health care spending to rise again, but not as fast as in past. "Numbers released Wednesday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Servicesshow that spending growth last year is expected to have remained very low by historical standards at just 3.6 percent. (The final data have yet to come in.) In 2014, as the economy gains steam and the Affordable Care Act’s main coverage provisions kick in, that increase is expected to be 5.6 percent. But even the higher number is nearly 2 percentage points lower than what the CMS Office of the Actuary estimated two years ago. And it’s well below the average 7.2 percent annual growth from 1990 to 2008....There’s still reason for concern, however. Almost any rise in health care spending remains a threat over the long run to federal finances." Brett Norman in Politico.

Why CMS actuaries think health spending growth will be slower. "One of those reasons is the greater prevalence of high-deductible health plans, which are supposed to make people more careful users of health-care services since they bear more of the cost. Further, the growth in how much Medicare spends per beneficiary has been historically low in recent years, though the actuary expects that will eventually return to normal levels. Drug spending also isn't expected to hit previously high levels as generics become more widely available, though the expected rise in expensive specialty drugs will drive the spending increase, officials said." Jason Millman in The Washington Post.

Per capita Medicare spending is actually falling. "The starkness of the pattern has been obscured because the budget office does not generally adjust its numbers for inflation. So its official charts — and other charts based on them — can mislead when it comes to future costs because they show increases that are simply a reflection of economy-wide inflation. Adjusted to reflect the value of a dollar, Medicare spending has not been rising and is not projected to rise in the next few years. The only other time cost growth has ever stayed below zero was in the late 1990s, when Congress made substantial cuts to Medicare spending. Then, the trend lasted for three years. This time, the budget office expects it to be more enduring." Margot Sanger-Katz in The New York Times