, Columnist
The Economy Tamed Health-Care Costs. That's Ending.
Growth is picking up. Medical inflation will too.
Paul Krugman tweeted the following about health care last week:
The point is significant. For decades, public and private health-care spending have grown significantly faster than the economy as a whole, a phenomenon known as excess-cost growth. Krugman’s tweet and a chart he attached from the Kaiser Family Foundation both suggest that excess-cost growth has ended. If this is the case, then fear of a looming Medicare crisis is overblown, and Republican enthusiasm for cuts in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare is misplaced on two counts.