Americans’ spending on health care grew at one of the slowest rates ever recorded for the fourth year in a row in 2012, according to a government study published on Monday.
National health expenditures increased just 3.7 percent in 2012 compared with the year before, said the study by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to a total of $2.8 trillion, or $8,900 per person. The rate of growth has stayed at similar levels since 2009.
The study found the stable, slow growth in healthcare costs was due to the recession, and not because of cost savings in the Affordable Care Act. The CMS said the health care law has had a “minimal impact” on health spending since it passed in 2010, according to ABC News.
Obamacare will make a difference eventually. The CMS has said that healthcare spending will grow by 6.1 percent in 2014, thanks to wider access to health care guaranteed by the health care law, and improved economic conditions.
[ABC News]