America continued to curb its spending on health care for the fourth year in a row.
Spending on health care grew by only 3.7% in 2012, continuing a streak of the slowest growth rates on record, according to data released Monday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The report looked at all spending on health care services, including doctors, drugs, hospitals and nursing homes, and research nationwide. It also breaks down who is doing the spending: consumers, Medicaid, Medicare and insurers.
Spending remained restrained due to the weak economy. People continued to pull back on medical care amid a continued weak job market and providers sought to keep prices in check. The Affordable Care Act had minimal impact, as many of the health reform's major provisions had yet to kick in.
The White House quickly jumped on the report saying that health reform has helped stop the trend of skyrocketing health care costs by stressing efficiency improvements. It specifically cited the act's contribution to lowering Medicare spending by penalizing hospitals with high readmission rates as an example.
Experts agreed, saying that providers began making changes in anticipation of required reforms.
"Every hospital executive has started the process of holding costs down," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
What's clear is that the slowdown in spending growth has benefited patients in recent years, sparing them from major increases in medical and premium costs. But looking at some of the underlying trends shows that growth varied widely depending on the service and payer.
To continue reading this article and to see what we spent more on in 2012 visit
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/06/news/economy/health-care-spending/
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