Controlling Health Care Costs Through Public, Transparent Processes: The Conflict Between the Morally Right and the Socially Feasible‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION Assessments of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Affordable Care Act) (1) echo a common theme: the legislation does much to provide health care coverage for the uninsured, but it does far less to contain health care spending. According to projections by the Congressional Budget Office, the Affordable Care Act will ensure that 94% of Americans are insured by 2019. (2) On the other hand, the inflation rate for health care costs will change very little. Instead of increasing by 6.8% per year between 2015 and 2019 without the Affordable Care Act, health care costs are expected to increase by 6.7% per year during the same time period under the Act. (3)