LOL. Cat Boy knows nothing about it either.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ally-dropping/
Healthcare increase has slowed, but you can't really point at one thing and say that was the reason. In general, Healthcare costs always outpace the economy. 2011 was an outlier. Once reason why 2011 may have seen a drop tho, IS the ACA. How it decided that hospitals were getting paid to much under Medicare/Medicaid, and slashed their reimbursement. That's a good thing, right?
No.. Not really. Hospitals will look to recover that lost revenue somewhere. Contracts for private insurance can't be changed right away.
The only part of the ACA that lowers healthcare costs at all, is the part where they basically say that the Government won't pay Dr's or Hospitals for certain things, or lower their rates. If the Fed tells a Hospital that 500$ is the max they will pay for a tonsillectomy, that does not become the default amount for all of them.
Reading that article, the worst thing that should scare you and everyone else here.. is the lack of new technologies. What company is going to want to invest several billion into something when the fed can decided that 12.95 is a suitable price to pay for it, when before they may have gotten 34.95. Then we do have the other end, MRI and CAT scans are old hat now. They used to be state of the art. Costs for them have come done. (Pittsburgh in 2008 had more MRI machines in the city, then Canada had) We still prescribe them way to often.. but that's another matter.
All things taken together, there really was nothing "affordable" about the ACA. I wouldn't call a plan that costs me 210 a month, and where I have to pay a 5k deductible very "affordable". Not to mention the Government keeps scaling back what is covered and not. (I am still surprised the women on these boards are not up in arms over Breast Cancer Screenings)
