Since the late 2000s Great Recession, historically low increasesin health-care prices have helped hold down inflation. That may be about tochange.
Hospital prices increased 2.2 percent inDecember, the fastest rate in four years, according to an analysisby Altarum, a nonprofit health-care research organization. Thegroup analyzes data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics andother sources to estimate the underlying prices that health plans andconsumers pay for medical goods and services.
While overall medical inflation was restrained last year, thereport warns that “we could very well be at the cusp” of a returnto a more typical pattern where increases in health-care pricesoutpace the broader inflation rate.
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