The NYT highlighted the slowdown in the growth rate of national health care spending in 2008 to 4.4 percent, compared with 6.0 percent in 2007 and an average of 7.0 percent in the decade from 1998 to 2008. There really is not very much to tout in this story. The slowdown was roughly proportional to the decline in GDP growth. As a result, health care spending measured as a share of GDP rose by 0.3 percentage points, roughly the same rate of growth that it had averaged over the prior decade.
The affordability of health care will depend on its growth as a share of GDP and a growth rate of 0.3 percentage points annually cannot be sustained indefinitely.
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