Not Enough Attention Paid to Low Healthcare Spending Growth

The United States just went through a period of low spending growth, and if no one pays attention to it, the country might not be able to figure out what worked to cause this slow growth, said Gail Wilensky, PhD, of Project HOPE.

Transcript

There is a lot going on in health policy and US politics; is there anything you are afraid might go unnoticed that would normally get more attention?

We’ve just had a period of very low spending growth that appears to be changing as the economy recovers—some of that of course is expected. I’m concerned that we may not give enough attention to what seems to have worked, and what not, in this very slow growth period that we’ve just gone through, and that we will just apply very crude attempts to slow down spending without taking advantage of what we could have learned—or should have learned—during this last period.