High Performance Health Care

This post is part of a new series designed to highlight the most significant new reports on health care management or policy–ranging from government reports to health care business studies.

We will highlight reports that may be useful to the thoughtful and busy health care leader. Our health care programs at the Opus College of Business emphasize leadership, organizational transformation, and operational excellence. The reports we select will reflect these themes and can be helpful in strategy formulation, operations improvement and leadership activities. 

This series will show you at a glance what you need to know about current developments in health care management and policy.

Modest Acceleration in U.S. Health Care Costs According to the S&P Healthcare Economic Indices
August 18, 2011

One of the key drivers of the federal budget deficit is Medicare. Most actuarial assumptions that Congress uses to predict future costs show Medicare costs rising much faster than inflation.  However, this S&P report shows that Medicare cost inflation has had a remarkable decrease. If this cost inflation remains low, it seems reasonable that the federal government can resist significant reductions to provider payments or increased contributions from beneficiaries.

(more…)