In 2009 and 2010, total nationwide health care spending grew less than 4 percent per year, the slowest annual pace in more than five decades, according to the latest numbers from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.
VERY interesting. But why?
Because Medicare and Medicaid are two of the largest contributors to the country’s long-term debts, slower growth in health costs could reduce the pressure for enormous spending cuts or tax increases.
I'd say that's pretty good news. Even more interesting...
Still, the slowdown was sharper than health economists expected, and a broad, bipartisan range of academics, hospital administrators and policy experts has started to wonder if what had seemed impossible might be happening — if doctors and patients have begun to change their behavior in ways that bend the so-called cost curve.
If the growth in Medicare were to come down to a rate of only 1 percentage point a year faster than the economy’s growth, the projected long-term deficit would fall by more than one-third.
If this continues to be the case, all of the arguments we have heard about health care may be going out the window. Wow.
2 comments:
This is positive if consumers are avoiding frivolous and unnecessary procedures, but bad in the long run if they're deferring basic preventive care.
To continue down this path, health plans need to be structured for cost reduction. For example, there should be a co-pay on unscheduled office visits for the common cold (which will almost always just go away on its own), but annually scheduled visits for vaccinations, mammograms (for those old enough to warrant them), scheduled prenatal care, regular exams for people with conditions such as diabetes, physicals every few years for healthy people, etc., should be covered without co-pays.
There should also be a high tax on unnecessary procedures that cause long-term problems. In particular, plastic surgery for cosmetic body enhancement (such as breast implants) should be fiercely taxed, because implants, almost without exception, will have to be removed at some point in the future for medical reasons, which will cost all of us money in the long run.
But pretty much everything should be "fiercely taxed", eh, Nikto?
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