I’ve written frequently about the fact that the rapid growth in US health care costs has slowed down in recent years. Here’s the latest version of the slowdown, courtesy of the Urban Institute:
The raw data for this chart comes the national health expenditures forecast issued annually by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. As you can see, their latest forecast for the year 2019 is about $500 billion less than it was in 2010. The cumulative forecast for 2014-19 is now $2.6 trillion less than it was in 2010.
It’s hard to say how much, if any, of this decrease is due to Obamacare. My own guess is that the cost-saving parts of Obamacare haven’t had time to really kick in yet, which means the recent slowdown in health care costs is most likely just an extension of the slowdown that’s been percolating behind our backs for more than three decades.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to say about Obamacare here. CMS did forecasts both before and after Obamacare passed, and they predicted that Obamacare would increase spending. Lots of conservatives predicted the same thing. But it didn’t happen. Here’s the chart for private health care spending:
The figures are even more dramatic for Medicare and Medicaid spending. The jury may still be out on Obamacare’s long-term effect on controlling health care costs, but one thing is sure: all the hysteria about Obamacare causing costs to skyrocket was entirely unfounded.
