October 15, 2016
Many people are aware of the increase the number of people insured as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Some also know about the slower rate of growth of health care costs. (Yes folks, that is slower growth in costs, not a decline — no one promised a miracle.) Anyhow, it is worth putting these two together to see the pattern in health care costs per insured person under Obamacare. Here’s the picture.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As can be seen, there is a sharp slowing in the rate of growth of health care costs per person in 2010, just as the Affordable Care Act is passed into law. In the years from 1999 to 2010, health care costs per insured person rose at an average annual rate of 5.7 percent. In the years from 2010 to 2015 costs per insured person rose at an average rate of just 2.3 percent.
Undoubtedly, the ACA is not the full explanation for the slowdown in cost growth, but it certainly contributed to the slowdown. Furthermore, as a political matter, does anyone doubt for a second that if cost growth had accelerated that the ACA would be given the blame even if there was no evidence that it was a major factor?
Anyhow, this is a good story. It doesn’t mean anyone should be happy with our health care system as it is now. We pay ridiculous sums for prescription drugs that would be cheap in a free market. Our doctors are paid twice as much as their counterparts in other wealthy countries. And, the insurance industry is a major source of needless waste. But the health care system is much better today than it was when President Obama took office, and that is a big deal.
Note: I realize that some folks are getting the wrong graph with this post. The correct one (which shows up on my computers) is an index of health care costs per insured person with 1999 set equal to 100. I have no idea where the other graph came from, but we will investigate.
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