Health care inflation has gone down every single year since the law [the Affordable Care Act] passed, so that we now have the lowest increase in health care costs in 50 yearswhich is saving us about $180 billion in reduced overall costs to the federal government and in the Medicare program.

President Obama, news conference, Nov. 5, 2014

In his post-election news conference, President Obama hit on a theme that we have explored before that the Affordable Care Act has led to lower increases in health care costs. But the evidence for this is still rather fuzzy.

Lets deconstruct the presidents statement.

First, note that the president simply notes that growth in health-care spendinghas gone down every year since the law passed, thus cleverly avoiding a causal connection. But he certainly implies it, and thats the message most viewers might have received.

But as we have said, the evidence for a direct connection is fuzzy and certainly in dispute. The White House earlier this year touted a report by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Servicesas showing slow health-care spending growth continued in 2013. But heres how the actuaries actually worded their assessment:

Health spending growth for 2013 is projected to have remained slow at 3.6 percent due to the modest economic recovery, the impacts of sequestration and continued slow growth in the utilization of Medicare services, and continued increases in cost-sharing requirements for the privately insured.

Note that there is little mention of the impact of the Affordable Care Act on the data. In fact, despite the presidents claim of a decrease of every year, the White Houses own chart shows that the 2013 estimate represents a slight uptick from 2012, when adjusted for inflation and population. As the White House report puts it, the three years since 2010 will have recorded the three slowest health-care spending growth rates since record keeping began in 1960. That is impressive, but it is not the same as health costs going down every single year since the law was passed in 2010.

Heres the White House chart:

See the original post:

Deconstructing the decline of health-care spending