The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed against a backdrop of decades of rapid growth in health care spending, and one of the ACA’s key goals was to root out serious inefficiencies in the United States health care system that increase costs and compromise patients’ quality of care. Recent data show that health care spending and prices are growing at their slowest rates in decades; it appears that something has changed for the better. While this marked slowdown likely has many causes, and these causes are not yet fully understood, the available evidence suggests that the ACA is contributing to these trends, and, moreover, is helping to improve quality of care for patients. Today the White House Council of Economic Advisers released a new report analyzing recent trends in health costs, the forces driving those trends, and their likely economic benefits. Read the full report here.
Key points in today's report from the Council of Economic Advisers:
1. Health care spending is growing at the slowest rate on record: According to the most recent projections, real per capita health care spending has grown at an estimated average annual rate of just 1.3 percent over the three years since 2010. This is the lowest rate on record for any three-year period and less than one-third the long-term historical average stretching back to 1965. This slower growth in spending is reflected in Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance.
2. Health care price inflation is at its lowest rate in 50 years: Measured using personal consumption expenditure price indices, inflation for health care goods and services is currently running at just 1 percent on a year-over-year basis, the lowest level since January 1962. (Health care inflation measured using the medical CPI is lower than at any time since September 1972.)
Fonte: White House