![]() ![]() But most of Obamacare’s coverage expansion didn’t begin until 2014, so this effect can’t explain the early years of the slowdown. Some research suggests that Americans who enter Medicare without prior health insurance cost more in their early years of coverage than those who were previously insured. ![]() Some readers also said access to preventive care may have made people healthier and less costly when they retired. Private insurers were also changing the way they paid for care, including in the growing Medicare Advantage program. Not everyone gives Obamacare’s payment experiments credit for this change. “There are things which we’re not seeing because of the way we analyze the data that are actually happening, and value-based payment is one of them.” He said all the experiments have added up to a new culture of medical practice. “We have bent the cost curve,” said Ezekiel Emanuel, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who worked in the Obama White House. Those changes alone are responsible for more than a trillion dollars in spending reductions, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, or about a quarter of the savings attributable to the recent flat spending trend. reduced the payments Medicare made to hospitals and to the insurance companies that administer private Medicare Advantage plans. The Affordable Care Act, which passed in 2010, should get credit for a significant share of Medicare’s savings during this period - and it may be responsible for a larger share than can be easily measured. Such a head scratcher.” - Stephen, Columbus, Ohio “Funny how the massive savings coincidentally coincide with implementation of Obamacare with cost-cutting measures and large portions of the population finally accessing health care prior to enrollment in Medicare. ![]() It also provoked more than 2,000 reader comments, many raising interesting questions and ideas of their own. Our article on this mystery outlined a few leading theories. Somehow, after decades of nonstop growth, its spending per person has flattened over the past dozen years, saving taxpayers roughly $3.9 trillion since 2011, according to an Upshot analysis.īut the reasons for the slowdown - and its duration - are not well understood. Medicare may just be the budget buster that wasn’t. ![]()
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