Report: Obamacare helps slow growth in health care costs - Politico

The slowing growth in health care costs isn’t just a fluke or a remnant of the recession, the White House asserted in a report released Wednesday, but rather a result of reforms in Obamacare.

The White House report is an attempt to shape the debate over how much credit should be given to the Affordable Care Act for the growth in health care spending dropping to its lowest levels since the 1960s.

President Barack Obama has cited the data as evidence for why the law is working, despite the bumpy rollout of HealthCare.gov. But the debate over the reduction in health care costs is far from settled, as studies conclude other factors have been more significant, namely the drop in employment and health care utilization during the recession.

Jason Furman, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, which authored the report, said the Affordable Care Act “is a very important part of the story.”

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The drop in health care costs continued well after the recession officially ended in 2009, Furman said.

“The fact that the health cost slowdown has persisted so long even as the economy is recovering, the fact that it is reflected in health care prices — not just utilization or coverage, and the fact that it has also shown up in Medicare — which is more insulated from economic trends, all imply that the current slowdown is the result of more than just the recession and its aftermath,” the report stated. “Rather, the slowdown appears to reflect ‘structural’ changes in the United States health care system, a conclusion consistent with a substantial body of recent research.”

The ACA is a contributing factor because it includes reductions in Medicare overpayment to private insurers and medical providers, and incentives for hospitals and doctors to improve their quality of care, the report stated.

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“Recent research implies that reforms to Medicare will have ‘spillover effects’ that reduce costs and improve quality system-wide,” the report stated. “Accounting for ‘spillovers’ implies that the ACA’s effect on health care price inflation may be much larger than previously understood.”