Businesses, unions and others might want to see the repeal of the Cadillac tax portionof the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. But a new reportfrom PwC (Price Waterhouse Cooper) says the Caddy tax will be a key“deflator” of upwardly spiraling national health care costs.

This “endorsement” of the tax on rich health care packages comesin a growth projection report by PwC that says the nation will seea slower growth pace for health spending in 2016.

Looking beyond next year, the report says that the Caddy tax isamong the factors that could continue to pull in the reins onhealth spending as a portion of GNP. The tax doesn’t take effectuntil 2018.

But other factors, including the escalating cost of specialty drugs,will push even as the Caddy tax pulls.

For 2016, PwC forecasts a 6.5 percent health spending increasebased upon current plan designs, with an alternative 4.5 percentincrease after anticipated plan design changes are factored in.

Cost sharing has either been implemented or will be soon, said85 percent of the employers responding to the survey. Virtualmedical care will come into its own next year, the report says,offering another way to contain the cost of care.

But too much cost-sharing will undermine the point of healthinsurance: to keep employees healthy. More than a quarter ofcovered employees said they did not seekrecommended medical care because they felt their shareof the cost was too high.

Thus PwC foresees a shift in cost containment that will balancecost of care to the insured with ensuring that people use insuranceto stay healthy, since a healthy population is actually the biggestfactor in containing medical care cost escalation.

Here’s the report summary:

“In this year’s report, we identified the following factorsexpected to “deflate,” or reduce, the healthcare growth rate in2016:

• Looming “Cadillac tax” accelerates cost shift

• Virtual care

• New health advisers

Going the other way, there are two factors expected to“inflate,” or boost, the spending trajectory in 2016:

• Specialty drugs

• Cyber security

“More Americans with health insurance and an improving economyhave not increased the medical spending trajectory. Structuralchanges have helped keep costs in check. But there is still much tobe done as long as health spending continues to outpace grossdomestic product and individual consumers and companies struggle toafford services,” the report says.

“Health companies must restrain costs when bringing new curesand technology to consumers. … Employers must pursue strategiesthat not only strengthen their bottom line but better equip workersto make informed health decisions – or they will all pay a highcost in the long run. User-friendly technology offers opportunitiesfor greater transparency, remote care delivery and true comparisonshopping.”