“This year the biggest looming question has been whether fledging payment revisions in Obama’s law, also mirrored by private insurance plans, are succeeding in holding costs down. The rate of growth the past three years has hovered under 4 percent, historically low. That’s coincided with a shift to paying hospitals and doctors for better quality, not just their sheer volume of tests and procedures. Obama has argued that his overhaul would begin to ‘bend the cost curve’ to more affordable levels. The analysts remained skeptical.”