Health care spending, price growth all but stop

[Greenbeard]

A trend continues.

Healthcare spending, price growth all but stop - FierceHealthFinance

Healthcare prices are rising at the lowest rate in nearly a quarter century, according to a new study by the Altarum Institute's Center for Sustainable Health Spending, and it may be the lowest rate of all times.

As Altarum themselves put it in their July 2013 Price Brief (subtitled "Health care price growth at 20+ year low!"):

Health care price inflation in May 2013, at 1.0% year-over-year, is growing at a historically low rate. While “all-time low” may be too strong, given that our data extend back only to January 1990, it’s difficult to imagine a lower rate in the last 70 years. The 12-month moving average at 1.8% in April 2013 is the lowest since the 1.7% recorded in September 1998.

Unusual times.

 

[Wyatt earp]

hey green beard why did you dissappear from the boards when Obama delayed the bussiness mandate last week? just curious... you were not here or anywhere else? were you sick or something? was worried about you dude....

 

[Greenbeard]

hey green beard why did you dissappear from the boards when Obama delayed the bussiness mandate last week? just curious... you were not here or anywhere else? were you sick or something? was worried about you dude....

There are people in the world, believe it or not, who step away from the internet when they go on vacation in mid-July.

I'm touched by the concern, though!

 

[Wyatt earp]

lol ok... but just want to hear your opinion of it... do you think its fair?

 

[Greenbeard]

Fair to whom? The vast majority, i.e. 94-95%, of businesses subject to the employer mandate already offer coverage, meaning the mandate is irrelevant for them. It was some subset of the extremely tiny minority that doesn't that made all the noise. And, unsurprisingly in retrospective given the administration's implementation philosophy thus far, they (and all businesses) got their temporary reprieve.

The political import is larger than the policy significance (the latter appears pretty small, though from the House vote the other day it appears they agree with the policy), and if that's what the administration judges to be a necessary political move to make the rest of the policy go more smoothly this year and next, so be it. The important thing is that the exchanges open in the fall, and the payment and delivery system reforms continue.

Because those are what have the potential to keep the unprecedentedly low spending and health care price growth we're experiencing low going forward.

 

[Wyatt earp]

dude most bussiness in the the US is small bussiness.. all I ever read now is people cutting back hours and hiring more part time workers... last I heard around 170 thousand part time jobs and only 20,000 thousand full time jobs were added last month...in 2012 it was the complete opposite. how is this a good thing? and extra 10 hours is like a extra $100 bucks for rent?

 

[Wyatt earp]

btw guess their is not stat on this... but I know so many people who dont even want to pay for their employeers health care plan.... they want that money to buy their children school clothes and stuff..