Paul Krugman tweeted the following about health care last week:
Why this is important: claims of an entitlements crisis rest largely on the assumption of rapid growth in health spending. We still have an aging population, but that's a manageable-sized issue. https://t.co/gsxU2SNMp7
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 2, 2018
The point is significant. For decades, public and private health-care spending have grown significantly faster than the economy as a whole, a phenomenon known as excess-cost growth. Krugman's tweet and a chart he attached from the Kaiser Family Foundation both suggest that excess-cost growth has ended. If this is the case, then fear of a looming Medicare crisis is overblown, and Republican enthusiasm for cuts in Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare is misplaced on two counts.
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