Health care spending grew at a record slow pace for the fourth straight year in 2012, according to a new government report. But the federal officials who compiled the report disagree with their bosses in the Obama administration about why.

The annual report from the actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, published in the journal Health Affairs, found total U.S. health spending totaled $2.8 trillion in 2012, or $8,915 per person.

Health spending consumed 17.2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, but that was slightly down from the previous year's 17.3 percent. And in a rare event, the growth rate of 3.7 percent was actually slower than that of the overall economy, which grew at a rate of 4.6 percent.

The report found several things that led to the slower spending increase, especially the residual effects of the recession.

But one thing that did not lead to slower growth, according to the authors, was the Affordable Care Act.

"The Affordable Care Act ...had a minimal impact on overall national health spending growth through 2012," the report said.

Instead, the law likely produced a small overall increase in spending for the first three years that the law was in effect, the actuaries say.

And the persistent slow growth in health spending, even a few years after the economy has begun to recover, is what you'd expect to see now, according to Aaron Catlin, deputy director of the National Health Statistics Group that leads the annual study.

"What we can tell you is that the period of stability is consistent with the historical experience," he told reporters at a briefing on the report.

In other words, health inflation has traditionally remained in check for at least a few years following a recession.

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Health Care Costs Grew More Slowly Than The Economy In 2012