The furthest-reaching political news of the week has nothing to do with who clogged the George Washington Bridge or what Robert Gates thinks of Barack Obama’s completely justifiable skepticism of David Petraeus and the war in Afghanistan.
It came in a seemingly boring actuarial report from a government agency most people probably have never of, showing that for the first time since the 1990s, total U.S. healthcare spending grew at a slower rate than the U.S. economy at the beginning of the current decade.This sounds like the kind of thing only wonks and other nerds care about, which is probably why it didn’t become a #hashtag meme on Twitter or whatever, but the implications of the great healthcare spending slowdown are vast, and have thus reignited a long-simmering academic and ideological debate over whether, and to what extent, Obamacare deserves credit.
waiting for the republican spin remember when job numbers first started the upward spiral right wing said Dems were cooking the books all i can say is they wish they had a chef like ours that can get those numbers in-spite of their do nothing tactics.
But there’s a decent chance that Obamacare has contributed to the slowdown, and prominent health economists — including ones who don’t have dogs in the fight — are engaged in a lively effort to settle this very question. Opinion journalists and political partisans are engaged in a similar debate, although for very different reasons.To Slate’s Matt Yglesias, the answer to the Obamacare question isn’t nearly as importantas the fact of the slowdown itself. The slowdown has already reduced spending projections and suggests the ACA’s coverage expansion won’t swallow the budget, and so it really doesn’t matter who pockets the credit.“The point is that one major concern people had about Obama’s coverage expansion is that it would exacerbate an unsustainable healthcare spending explosion. Had that proved to be the case, it would have been a huge problem for the coverage expansion. But in fact, spending growth is slowing. So the problem doesn’t exist. I think the ‘coincidence theory’ strains credulity but even if it’s true, the win is there anyway.”
are any of you surprised that so far all republican doom and gloom predictions were just the same ol' plan "keep saying it, it will stick", but they love shortcut and deregulation should have used a gov't approved glue. i really hope that this helps to open that other eye some have been viewing the Pres.'s efforts and their lies, when are they going to concede they are 0 for a lot, he comes through regardless to the blockades, that has to have raised the stock on antacids for the republicans, Reagan had a bowl full of jelly beans Beohner and the boyz Zantac.
