2014
People who make claims such as the one below either don’t know what they are talking about or intentionally mislead people. Just think about the question logically. We have a massive new, very complex law affecting both public and private health care plans and all aspects of the health care system. The law was passed in March 2010 and has been gradually implemented since. Nothing in the law has been fully implemented long enough to be proven effective at controlling health care costs. Rather, some elements such as expanded benefit mandates have increased costs slightly.
There are several drivers in the current slowing of health care cost growth. The first is the economy since 2008 as most experts say.
In my opinion there are two other factors you don’t hear much about, but have been factors in the past.
One I will call the Hawthorne effect. Simply put, all the attention focused on health care has caused providers and others to act differently. This has happened before, notably during the Clinton reform effort, and is temporary. So to some extent you could say the ACA is responsible.
The other factor is the changing scope of health insurance. That is, the growing deductibles and higher out-of-pocket costs people face. This applies to private, employer and the ACA exchange plans. Whether this is good or bad remains to be seen. It may cause people to think twice about using health care, but that may mean cost delay not savings. Also, spending before deductibles are met (we are talking thousands of dollars)is not measured. Again, the indirect impact of the ACA could be considered a factor in this change, although it started before the law was passed. But, what may appear as less spending, is actually cost shifting to individuals.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen claims the Affordable Care Act “has resulted in significantly reducing the per capita cost of health care.” To be clear, the per capita cost of health care is rising. Van Hollen’s office says he meant that the ACA has significantly reduced the growth in health care costs. That’s different.
Per capita health care costs have been rising at just under 3 percent a year over the last four years, but that’s less than half the average annual growth in the preceding eight years. Economists say the recession is the biggest reason for the dip — though many also credit the ACA for a bit of the decline.
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