Rise in health care spending continues to be low

There is quite a bit of press today noting that for the third straight year, health care costs have risen at a fairly slow rate.

here is an abstract of the original article in Health Affairs. It is very hard to reach today due to interest in it. 

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/32/1/87.abstract

here is link to full article

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/32/1/87.full


here are some sources of articles published today.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2013/January/08/health-spending-news.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/us/health-spending-growth-stays-low-for-third-straight-year.html?_r=0

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/the-2-7-trillion-question-are-health-care-costs-really-dropping/

I wrote last August about this issue.  There was speculation that the slower rise might be related to Obamacare, but no definitive link has been established.  

Here are three previous blogs. 

http://healthreformaction.blogspot.com/2012/08/deceleration-in-health-spending-full.html

http://healthreformaction.blogspot.com/2012/08/obamacare-may-be-causing-slowdown-in.html

http://healthreformaction.blogspot.com/2012/08/obamacare-may-have-reduced-inlfation.html