See What Cost Shifting Is Doing to Medical Spending

There has been lots of talk lately about a slowdown in health care expenditures. This has caused even more debate about whether the slowdown is temporary or permanent, and whether the Affordable Care Act deserves any credit for it. Below here is a picture from a recent analysis in Health Affairs, which shows the change in health spending over the last four years, among employees receiving healthcare benefits from large companies:

Two things to notice in this figure. First, healthcare expenses in these large firms still grew pretty quickly in 2008 and 2009, despite the slowdown in the economy. It is only the last two years that of seen a dramatic reduction in spending growth, one that’s hard to tell whether it will last or not. Second, a decent chunk of this reduction is due to the fact that these firms are handing off more of the costs to their employees, a.k.a. patients. Expect more of this cost shifting over the next few years. Employers are desperate to control their healthcare expenses. One way to do that is to ask employees to pay more for their healthcare.
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