Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Good grief Peter

Bloomberg: The federal government's own actuaries are once again pessimisticthat America's health-care costs will continue their slow growth. Thankfully, their boss, Sylvia Burwell, the secretary of Health and Human Services, is working hard to prove them wrong. On Monday, she took another big step in the right direction.
Medicare costs this year are up only 4 percent, which means that on an inflation-adjusted basis, spending per beneficiary is declining. And that’s been the pattern of the past five years -- despite the actuaries’ repeated predictions that cost growth is on the verge of picking up.

A 4% price growth when total CPI is growing at about 1%.   The growth skew is enough to insure bankruptcy, eventually.  Peter is happy it might happen on schedule, not rushed by accelerated inflation (second derivative),

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