Source of graph: online version of NYT article cited below.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 — Spending on health care in the United States increased in 2005 at the slowest pace in six years, mostly because of much slower growth in spending on prescription drugs, the government reported Monday.
It was the third consecutive year of slower growth in the nation’s medical bills. Total health spending reached nearly $2 trillion in 2005, growing only a bit faster than the economy as a whole, officials said.
But with new medical technology becoming available every month and with a generation of baby boomers approaching old age, federal officials made no bold claims about having tamed health costs.
“It is unclear whether this phenomenon is temporary or indicative of a longer-term trend,” said Aaron C. Catlin, the principal author of the government’s annual report on health spending, published in the journal Health Affairs.
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