Health Care Spending Growth Slowing?

Washington Post:

The New England Journal of Medicine published a paper this week titled “When the Cost Curve Bent,” where researchers from the Center for Sustainable Health Costs suggest that the slowdown happened way before the recession. Their analysis shows — and you can see it in this chart — that excess health-care spending growth (any spending above and beyond potential gross domestic product) began to moderate in the early 2000s:
Most of the difference is that gray bar, the one that represents “non-personal health care.” That pretty much includes the cost of private health insurance, alongside the cost of administering government health-care programs and medical equipment — most of the stuff that isn’t a doctor seeing a patient, or a prescription.
“The most important factor in 2003 was the net cost of private insurance (roughly the difference between premium revenues and payments to health care providers), which rose sharply,” the researchers write. “In 2008 and 2009, that net cost dropped sharply, which, combined with reduced spending on structures and equipment, drove down overall excess spending.”