Why is healthcare slowing? GOP budget cuts, long recession, Obamacare?
That's right, says Robt Wood Johnson Foundation.
Healthcare spending has mostly gone up less than what was projected back in 2010, when the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) passed Congress, writes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation here, citing Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data.
What explains the slower growth?
1) Policy changes, such as the Budget Control Act of 2011 -- the "sequester" -- that limited federal healthcare spending.
2) The Great Recession -- "the historic slowdown in health spending growth that began in 2008." Healthcare spending in 2010-13 increased 3.6 percent annually. The actuaries had expected 5.4 percent.
But didn't healthcare spending growth surge to over 6 percent in 2014?Why won't it keep rising? "Evidence is growing that this spike was largely caused by the ACA coverage expansion, and has already begun to dissipate," the Johnson report adds.
Altarum Institute data shows spending growth slowed again late last year. "Factors beyond the economy have contributed to persistently slower spending growth," the Johnson report concludes, projecting "it will become harder not to attribute at least some of the sustained cost containment" to Obamacare.