Has the ACA contributed to a slowdown in medical inflation?

[stpioc]

This is pretty probable, here is the Commonwealth Fund:

Although it remains unclear how much of this phenomenon can be attributed to the Affordable Care Act, it seems clear that payment and delivery system changes set in motion by the ACA have made a significant contribution to lower cost growth as well as improvements in care. Among the ACA reforms that appear to be contributing to recent trends are:

• A tightening of Medicare’s hospital “productivity adjustment,” which lowered the prices paid by the program.
  
• Adjustments to Medicare’s annual updates of provider payment rates.
  
• Lower payment rates for private Medicare Advantage plans.
  
• Strong incentives to reduce hospital readmission rates and infections.
  
• New payment methods for holding health care providers and systems more accountable for the quality and cost of care they provide.
  

The ACA’s reforms targeting Medicare, including a tightening of payments to hospitals and lower excess payments to private plans participating in Medicare, have directly contributed to lower program spending. Other reforms created incentives for providers to redesign their care delivery systems.


the ACA bears at least some responsibility: 

• For example, by curtailing excessive Medicare payments to private insurers and medical providers, the law has contributed Recent Trends in Health Care Costs, Their Impact on the Economy, and the Role of | 149 the Affordable Care Act to the recent slow growth in health care prices and spending, reducing health care price inflation by an estimated 0.2 percentage points each year since 2010. 
  
• hospital readmission rates have turned sharply lower since the ACA began penalizing hospitals that readmit a larger number of patients soon after discharge.  
  
• Similarly, the ACA has substantially increased health care provider participation in payment models designed to promote high-quality, integrated care.  
  
• An emerging literature also suggests that the ACA’s payment reforms, which operate primarily through Medicare (and, to a lesser extent, through Medicaid), may generate “spillover” benefits throughout the health system. This literature finds that when Medicare reduces payments to medical providers, private payers tend to follow suit, and also finds that the same is true for changes to the structure of how Medicare pays providers. Some recent evidence also suggests that changes in payment structures by one insurer may benefit patients covered by other insurers, even if those other insurers do not adopt the new payment structures.