Obamacare

[Lamplighter]

I don't know why I keep reading David Brooks' editorials in the NY Times.
Before I'm half way through one, I'm usually calling him "dumb ass" .
But actually, tho I still think him nuts, he often sets me to explore his references.

Once again, Brooks has played the motivator
Brook's editorial today is a good exploration of
OmabaCare coverage (% population with coverage)



and costs ($) given Brooks' 3 potential pathways our economy may take.

Great News! We’re Not Doomed to Soaring Health Care Costs

It really matters who the next president is.
But there are other things that matter just as much to the nation’s future prosperity.
One of them is: What is happening to health care costs?

If health care costs start to rise again the way they did before,
then health care spending will swallow the economy and bankrupt the federal government.
If they are contained, then suddenly there’s a lot more money foreverything else,
like schools, antipoverty efforts and wages.

The good news is that recently health care inflation has been at historic lows.
As Jason Furman, the chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers,
put it in a speech to the Hamilton Project last month[*],
“Health care prices have grown at an annual rate of 1.6 percent since
the Affordable Care Act was enacted in March 2010,
the slowest rate for such a period in five decades, and those prices have grown
at an even slower 1.1 percent rate over the 12 months ending in August 2015.”
<snip>
...

[*] link
This report also links decreasing Medicare costs to actual improvement in medical treatments,
as prompted by Medicare reducing payments to hospitals on "re-admissions".
That is, patients are getting better care (e.g., reduced hospital-caused infections),
and not needing to be readmitted.

The cynical might question if "re-admissions" were some sort of "profit center".


.