A report being released today by the Center for Studying Health System Change shows that the rate of growth in health care spending fell for the second year in a row in 2003. Experts believe the drop was caused in part by workers being required to pay a larger share of the costs, which resulted in reduced demand for services. This type of cost shifting was seen most in prescription drug programs. However, health care costs are still far outpacing inflation as spending per privately insured person increased 7.4 percent last year.
See "Inflation eases in health care", Theresa Agovino, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 8, 2004