Here’s a strange paradox: Health-care costs have increased by an unsustainable rate of about 8.5% each year over the past decade, according to PwC’s Health Research Institute. Already, the average employer-based family health insurance plans costs more than $18,000 annually.

But Medicare spending has been relatively stable. Over the past three years, the program’s payouts to hospitals have increased by only 1% to 3% a year, roughly even with inflation. The prices paid for some core services, such as ambulance transportation, have actually gone down.

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