Healthcare costs slowing down?

There have been 2,470 mentions of the phrase "spiraling health care costs" in the media over the last year, according to Google. But as investor Eddy Elfenbein points out, medical costs are doing anything but spiraling. "Healthcare costs have outrun the cost of everything else for decades," he writes. "Suddenly, that trend has come to an end. Over the last year, healthcare costs have actually trailed broader consumer prices."

The year-over-year change in the medical care portion of the Consumer Price Index is now at the lowest level in 40 years.

Or as Eddy points out, medical care is growing slower than core inflation for the first time in decades: