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posted by E.J. in Health

Four Years of Reduced Health Care Spending; Why?

February 12, 2013

Here's some good, or maybe interesting, news from The New York Times today. According to the Congressional Budget Office, health care spending has steadily declined over the past four years and it started just before the Great Recession and before ObamaCare was enacted. What gives?

Part of the slowdown stems from “the recession and the loss of income and wealth” causing people to cut back on health care, Douglas W. Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, said last week. But he added that a “significant part” of the slowdown “probably arises from structural changes in the health care system.”

Some insurers have moved away from simply paying per procedure by giving health care providers financial incentives to reduce complications and rehospitalizations, for instance. Doctors, nurses and hospitals have also taken steps to reduce wasteful treatments. Many of the changes predate the 2010 health care overhaul, but the law has also contributed to the changes by offering some financial incentives, health care experts say.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/us/politics/sharp-slowdown-in-us-healt...

Apparently the medical industry has gotten the threatening message of ObamaCare which started during our president's nearly two-year presidential campaign promoting his ideas on health care, among many other things. But it's not that simple; nothing ever is. There are unexplainable cycles, like reduced health care spending during the 1990s, a time of economic prosperity. So, what gives?

Have more popular drugs become generic?

Have the last of the Greatest Generation who smoked so much and had poor health care and nutritional opportunities at last died out?

Will this positive trend continue?

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