Slower Growth of Health Costs Eases Budget Deficit

[No Elephants]

WASHINGTON — A sharp and surprisingly persistent slowdown in the growth of health care costs is helping to narrow the federal deficit, leaving budget experts trying to figure out whether the trend will last and how much the slower growth could help alleviate the country’s long-term fiscal problems.

In figures released last week, the Congressional Budget Office said it had erased hundreds of billions of dollars in projected spending on Medicare and Medicaid. The budget office now projects that spending on those two programs in 2020 will be about $200 billion, or 15 percent, less than it projected three years ago. New data also show overall health care spending growth continuing at the lowest rate in decades for a fourth consecutive year.

Health experts say they do not yet fully understand what is driving the lower spending trajectory. But there is a growing consensus that changes in how doctors and hospitals deliver health care — as opposed to merely a weak economy — are playing a role. Still, experts sharply disagree on where spending might be in future years, a question with major ramifications for the federal deficit, family budgets and the overall economy.

[Enthusiast]

1. As ever growing number consumers

suffer at the hands of the for-profit industrial health care/insurance complex, we will see an increase in the frequency of articles that tell us how things are improving. I think your guess is right. These "findings" are from the health care providers themselves and their allies in congress. But they don't necessarily reflect reality.

We have it so good with this, "greatest health care in the world"! Why would we question anything? There are congresspeople still making this absurd claim even though most of us now see this as a fucking lie.

I suspect the ACA was a preemptive effort to stave off the inevitable implementation of a truly universal single payer system. Remember, it was something we were not even allowed to discuss. That should raise all sorts of alarm bells.

Sorry if I have gone off on a tangent.

[No Elephants]

2. Why would I complain about anyone going off on a tangent?

I'm always doing that!

We do have the best health care system in the world.

Well, we do if you don't count the 36 countries that rank ahead of us.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/05/john-boehner/john-boehner-says-us-health-care-system-best-world/