[nantes]

Wrt to your first link[1], the very first sentence in the overview tab states, "US Health Care Inflation Rate is at 3.98%, compared to 4.26% last month and 2.95% last year. This is lower than the long term average of 5.40%."

I don't intend any snarkiness, but am I somehow misreading those numbers? I'm reading that statement as "an inflation rate of 2.95% for the last year compared to the long term average of 5.40% could be equated with 'more affordable'".

[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_health_care_inflation_rate

[danjoc]

The long term inflation rate of the US is much lower than that as a whole. That's the point. Inflation in health care exceeds inflation in the US as a whole.

That is the core issue. That was not solved by the ACA. How do we solve it? Ideas? Oh yeah, you know what? Let's argue about Obama and Trump instead. That will surely work. Look at the comments in this thread.

If I asked you how to solve a sorting problem, I'd have a dozen good solutions presented. If I ask how to solve a healthcare cost problem that many other countries don't seem to have, everyone's brain switches off and they go into arguing about politics.

[giaour]

"Health care inflation" isn't directly comparable to the overall inflation rate, as the quality and amount of health care has been rising alongside the increasing percentage of GDP we spend on it. Compared to when the only available remedies were bloodletting and leeches, I bet we spend a lot more on the health care sector.

[danjoc]

Are you seriously making excuses for the overpriced health care in the US? Every other country has the same procedures we have in the US at lower prices.

http://ritholtz.com/2012/03/comparing-medical-procedure-cost...

[maxerickson]

It's an improvement over the status quo but it still has health care costs increasing faster than the rate of inflation. Which is pretty easy to characterize as health care getting less affordable, even though it is likely an improvement.