Let's Not Forget About Medicare
本文提醒人们关注医疗保险这一严峻的医疗挑战，指出2016年医疗支出增速放缓可能让人忽视其长期风险，并引用CMS预测说明未来增长将加速。
ith so much attention focused on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its potential replacements or reforms, it is easy to forget about other looming health care challenges-but Medicare is the most serious among them. The slowdown in health care spending recently reported for 2016 may also make it even easier to put aside concerns over Medicare. Indeed, health care spending for 2016 grew at a rate of only 4.8%, a reduction of a full percentage point over the spending growth of 5.8% from 2015. 1 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) projections for the next decade indicate that 2016 and 2017 are expected to have the slowest periods of growth-5.4% growth between 2016 and 2017-and will then accelerate. The higher growth in the previous year (2014-2015) was attributed primarily to the expansion in coverage from the ACA while the slower growth for 2016 is because coverage had generally stabilized for 2016.