New estimates from Center for American Progress Senior Fellow and Harvard economist David Cutler, Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis, and Commonwealth Fund Senior Research Associate Kristof Stremikis show that the health reform law could reduce annual growth in health care spending from 6.3 percent to 5.7 percent over the next decade—a savings of $590 billion—while lowering annual premiums by nearly $2,000 for the typical family and extending coverage to 32 million previously uninsured individuals by 2019. The analysis concludes that significant payment and system reform provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will begin to realign incentives within the health care system and reduce cost growth to a greater extent than predicted by the Congressional Budget Office and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Office of the Actuary.
