Misconceptions about Healthcare Spending

Came across this great article by Olga Khazan,  "Obesity, Not Old People, Is Making Healthcare Expensive".  Check out the main bullet points:

• The aging population doesn't account for most medical spending.
• The U.S. doesn't have the best healthcare system in the world.
• Spending more on IT is not necessarily making our health system more cost-efficient.
• The rate of increase in medical costs has actually slowed.
• Consumers aren't the ones paying for an increasing share of medical costs.

Most interesting for me is the fourth point regarding rate of medical spending actually decreasing.  I oftentimes see papers and presentations citing the constant increase in percentage of US GDP spent on healthcare.  But if you look at the graph above, you see that this spending increase has actually slowed down dramatically and is more an outcome of inflation.