Affordable care that isn’t affordable

[dblack]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

 

[Arianrhod]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

My source would be the links in Greenbeard's posts. He's got far more knowledge of the drill-down details than I do, and I defer to his expertise.

 

[dblack]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

My source would be the links in Greenbeard's posts. He's got far more knowledge of the drill-down details than I do, and I defer to his expertise.

heh.. gotcha.

 

[Arianrhod]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

My source would be the links in Greenbeard's posts. He's got far more knowledge of the drill-down details than I do, and I defer to his expertise.

heh.. gotcha.

If "winning" is that important to you...

 

[dblack]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

My source would be the links in Greenbeard's posts. He's got far more knowledge of the drill-down details than I do, and I defer to his expertise.

heh.. gotcha.

If "winning" is that important to you...

Well, I didn't mean "gotcha" in that sense - just meant I understand what you mean.

Though if prices really were falling, seems the administration would be crowing about it.

 

[Arianrhod]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

My source would be the links in Greenbeard's posts. He's got far more knowledge of the drill-down details than I do, and I defer to his expertise.

heh.. gotcha.

If "winning" is that important to you...

Well, I didn't mean "gotcha" in that sense - just meant I understand what you mean.

Though if prices really were falling, seems the administration would be crowing about it.

Sorry - I'm so used to wrangling with you I misunderstood you.

As for why the administration isn't crowing, at a guess the upcoming veto of the GOP's usual nonsense should send the message Obama wants to convey.

 

[dblack]

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

My source would be the links in Greenbeard's posts. He's got far more knowledge of the drill-down details than I do, and I defer to his expertise.

heh.. gotcha.

If "winning" is that important to you...

Well, I didn't mean "gotcha" in that sense - just meant I understand what you mean.

Though if prices really were falling, seems the administration would be crowing about it.

Sorry - I'm so used to wrangling with you I misunderstood you.

As for why the administration isn't crowing, at a guess the upcoming veto of the GOP's usual nonsense should send the message Obama wants to convey.

Yeah. They're real low-key that way...

No, I suspect the reason they aren't bragging about health care prices declining is that they aren't.

 

[Greenbeard]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

Prices for physician and clinical services are dropping. Hospital price growth has fallen below 1%.

 

[Greenbeard]

My source would be the links in Greenbeard's posts. He's got far more knowledge of the drill-down details than I do, and I defer to his expertise.

heh.. gotcha.

If "winning" is that important to you...

Well, I didn't mean "gotcha" in that sense - just meant I understand what you mean.

Though if prices really were falling, seems the administration would be crowing about it.

Sorry - I'm so used to wrangling with you I misunderstood you.

As for why the administration isn't crowing, at a guess the upcoming veto of the GOP's usual nonsense should send the message Obama wants to convey.

Yeah. They're real low-key that way...

No, I suspect the reason they aren't bragging about health care prices declining is that they aren't.

They do brag about the disappearance of health care price inflation, just through some of the nerdier outlets.

Prices of health care services have risen just 0.7 percent over the past four quarters, extending the recent period of exceptionally slow health care price inflation, while expanding coverage has driven faster growth in aggregate utilization of health care services. Prior to 2015, an increase in health care services prices as low as the 0.7 percent increase over the most recent four quarters had not been seen since 1961.

 

[dblack]

"Prices of health care services have risen ...."

Yep.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

Prices for physician and clinical services are dropping. Hospital price growth has fallen below 1%.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

Prices for physician and clinical services are dropping. Hospital price growth has fallen below 1%.

1. This is price growth decline. Not a decline in prices.

2. Your statistics are almost always in percent. Percent of what ?

Whatever the basis, it does appear that prices are declining.

 

[Greenbeard]

1. This is price growth decline. Not a decline in prices.

Negative growth is a decline in prices.

2. Your statistics are almost always in percent. Percent of what ?

The percentages indicate year-over-year change. Physician and clinical services were a little over 1% lower in 2015 than during the same period in 2014. They've been declining.

Hospital prices have still been growing (other than for a brief decline in prices last January, the first ever) but at a historically low rate.

 

[dblack]

1. This is price growth decline. Not a decline in prices.

Negative growth is a decline in prices.

Sure. But a decline in price growth isn't. It's just slower price growth. Spin your horseshit equivocation elsewhere.

 

[dblack]

1. This is price growth decline. Not a decline in prices.

Negative growth is a decline in prices.

Price growth decline is not negative growth. Spread this spin on one of your other outlets.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

1. This is price growth decline. Not a decline in prices.

Negative growth is a decline in prices.

2. Your statistics are almost always in percent. Percent of what ?

The percentages indicate year-over-year change. Physician and clinical services were a little over 1% lower in 2015 than during the same period in 2014. They've been declining.

Hospital prices have still been growing (other than for a brief decline in prices last January, the first ever) but at a historically low rate.

1. I missed the elevated zero on the axis. I stand corrected on the one variable.

2. Thank you for the clarification. I don't like these kinds of graphs. I generally work with physical systems and tht is n

 

[Sun Devil 92]

1. This is price growth decline. Not a decline in prices.

Negative growth is a decline in prices.

Price growth decline is not negative growth. Spread this spin on one of your other outlets.

I missed that hospital & physician price growth had gone negative. This was the one place he had called this out.

 

[Sun Devil 92]

If you can show statistically that the PPACA is not having an effect on lowing pricing (despite ample statistics provided by Greenbeard and others showing that it is), please do so.

I haven't seen any stats, from Greenbeard or anyone else, showing declining health care prices. Can you post your source for that claim?

Prices for physician and clinical services are dropping. Hospital price growth has fallen below 1%.

In further review, it would seem something else was at work here.

Hospital care price growth had been dropping since 2006. I'd like to see the graph for the past 20 years actually....does such a graph exist ? Service prices appear to have been leveled off.

These trends started prior to 2010 and certainly before 2013.

Did the industry have an explanation for this.

My guess is that these curves hit a maxima at some point. Be curious to see when.

It also appears they've flattened out in 2015.

Taken in the context of the ACA...it seems other forces were at work too.

As I quoted from someone else...it's tough to figure out what is ACA and what isn't.

Is this the same case or has someone been able to correlate the two.

 

[Greenbeard]

In further review, it would seem something else was at work here.

Hospital care price growth had been dropping since 2006. I'd like to see the graph for the past 20 years actually....does such a graph exist ? Service prices appear to have been leveled off.

Altarum has a longer time series, but not broken down by component. This is year-over-year change in all health prices (hospitals, physician and clinical services, perscription drugs, nursing home care, dental services, home health, other professional, other personal, other nondurable medical products, DME) going back 25 years:

The current period of decline in growth began in 2010. The only other similar period was the invention of the Medicare physician fee schedule in the early '90s followed by the price clamp-down by commercial payers during the managed care era of the mid-90s.

Now you have payers again getting aggressive in price negotiations (this is what all the hooplah over narrow and tiered networks is about), and increasingly engaging providers in risk-based contracts in which payment to the providers is impacted by the quality of the care they deliver and its total cost (i.e., their prices times their service volume). Those effectively dull the impact of larger pricer increases, making them less attractive (better performance instead becomes the route to better financial results).

At the same time, as deductibles rise you've got more people becoming price sensitive to anything priced below the deductible.

These trends started prior to 2010 and certainly before 2013.

Some of it sure, but it's all been accelerated and institutionalized in large part due to the ACA. The old fee-for-service world has started to melt away because of the ACA. We're now firmly moving into a world of value-based purchasing, risk-based contracting, and accountable care. That's a big deal and it's a big shift.

 

[Greenbeard]

Sure. But a decline in price growth isn't. It's just slower price growth. Spin your horseshit equivocation elsewhere.

I was talking about a particular set of services. If you're shopping for a service offered by a physician or another clinical service (the second largest category of overall health spending), overall prices are lower now than they were a year ago. Full stop.

Average price growth across all categories of services is still slightly positive (though currently lower than any time in the last half century) largely because hospital price growth is still slightly positive, and because of the jump in spending on new blockbuster prescription drugs.