hi tkc,
i tend to take the predictions with a grain of salt, although i am sure they are doing as good a job as can be done.
so i will confine myself to the 5.5% in 2014.
to reach medical cost stability as a share of GDP, you'd expect health costs to rise as the economy expands, the population (including the population of healthcare users) grows and inflation (albeit very low inflation) reduces the real value of money.
the top line of 5.5% is hard to read in the absence of such context. my napkin says maybe there's a 0.2 or 0.3% change in medical expenditure vs GDP in 2014.
not good, but not yet alarming. i am sure there is more that can be done to minimise the rate of growth - eg manage drug prices.
being the WSJ, of course, they want to make things as exciting as possible.
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