发帖
雷达卡
■ US core inflation is running noticeably short of the Fed’s objective. Restrained health care inflation, which accounts for nearly one-fourth of consumer expenditures excluding food and energy, has been an important contributor to that softness, especially in the PCE. Looking forward, we see a moderate uptrend in health care inflation contributing significantly to a normalization of core inflation in the years ahead.
■ For decades, health care inflation ran as much as several percentage points above core inflation. But in the past six years, that gap has disappeared. Indeed, declining health care inflation has accounted for about half of the recent shortfall in core PCE inflation relative to the Fed’s objective of 2%. The sector’s impact on the core CPI has been much weaker, as health care carries a smaller weight in that index.
■ Our analysis suggests that government policy – most importantly the Affordable Care Act – has played an important role in depressing medical care inflation. This was done via the introduction of relatively stringent controls on the rate of increases in fees that could be charged on medical services paid for by Medicare and Medicaid. The effects of these controls were magnified by the expansion of coverage under Medicaid as mandated by the ACA and Medicare thanks to demographic trends. And they were further magnified as private insurers adopted the fee schedules controlled by the government insurers.
■ Looking ahead, assuming current health policy is unchanged, we expect that health care inflation will rise again, albeit slowly, largely as a result of demand pressures driven by demographics and increased insurance coverage, among other factors. Government price controls will restrain the rise, but at some point they could also begin to impinge on supply. If government (CMS) projections prove correct, rising health care services inflation could add about 20bp to core PCE inflation by 2018.
■ Finally, while odds of an ACA repeal and replace appear to have diminished of late, should this outcome be realized, the current bills before Congress suggest that health care inflation could continue to be repressed somewhat in the next few years. Importantly, these bills appear to leave the ACA's price controls in place, presumably largely because of their restraining effect on the federal budget deficit. A more significant rollback of Medicaid as we enter the 2020s, and the emergence of peak demands on the health care system from the baby boom generation, could put additional upward pressure on inflation in the coming years.
20170706-Deutsche Bank-US Economic Perspectives：Health Care May Provide A Boost.pdf
(455.79 KB, 需要: 2 个论坛币)
提升卡
置顶卡
沉默卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
京公网安备 11010802022788号
