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A comment on United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Next Steps. Parent comment

Re:United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Ne... by dragonwriter on Tuesday July 12, 2016 @03:54PM (#12081863)
> I still contend that the availability/unavailability of health insurance was not the problem that needed solving. Instead, it's one of many symptoms that can be attributed to the unreasonable cost of healthcare, which has escalated in part because of the disassociation between the actual billing and payment.

The rate of increase in per-capita costs has decreased under the ACA. So, while it perhaps hasn't yet solved the problem, its certainly hard to argue that its been thing worse than the system in place before it was adopted.

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Re:United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Ne... by maxerickson on Tuesday July 12, 2016 @03:58PM (#12081883)
We need a period of time that isn't coincident with a huge recession before we celebrate this too much.
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Re:United States Health Care Reform: Progress to Date and Ne... by dragonwriter on Tuesday July 12, 2016 @04:04PM (#12081922)
> We need a period of time that isn't coincident with a huge recession before we celebrate this too much.

The most recent recession ended the same year the ACA was passed, the annual average cost growth rates, for private insurance and both major public programs, after the ACA are lower than the 5 year period containing that recession and the passage of the ACA, and even moreso lower than the 5 year period before that (during which there was no "huge recession".) [0]

[0] Figure 4 in TFA.

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