“When an official report determines that health care costs are increasing at their lowest rate in nearly a decade, you’d think the media would notice. Instead, all we heard was more gloom and doom. ‘Health care spending surge seen’ is how the Chicago Tribune described the latest report from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which each year reports on health care spending and offers its forecast for spending into the future. ‘U.S. health care spending seen doubling in next 10 years’ is how the San Diego Union-Tribune put it. ‘U.S. Health-Care Costs to Top $4 Trillion by 2016,’ was the headline in the Washington Post. Each of the stories cast the news in dire terms: rapidly rising health costs, heavier burdens on families and businesses, and the desperate need for national health-care reform. Yet when you read the report, there’s actually good news in it.” (02/27/07)