Should You Plan For A Health Care Spending Decrease?

It is rare when a group of actuaries predict that health care spending will decrease. But that is the prediction of a recent report, Breaking The Cost Curve. A group of Deloitte actuaries project a deceleration in health spending, likely creating a US $3.5 trillion “well-being dividend” by 2040. This represents a decrease in spending of approximately $2.1 billion per year for the next 18 years.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) had projected that health spending would continue to grow at a rate of 5.3% a year, reaching . . .