A decline in health care spending . . . or?

Today's American Health Line had the following story about a 2.9% decline in GDP in 2014 Q1 that was caused by "lower than expected health care spending".  

While some economists found this encouraging, a more likely explanation is that this is the result of steady shift to higher deductibles, which artificially depress health care spending for the first part of the year. (They also serve no useful purpose in containing unnecessary costs; but they do disproportionately punish low-income workers.) If this is the case, it suggests two consequences:

1. To effectively judge health care inflation, we will need to consider the entire year, instead of just the first quarter; and
2. We should watch for workers increasingly avoiding needed health care services, leading to increased severity due to delays in treatment.

Unexpected Decrease in Health Care Spending Powers 2.9% Decline in GDP in Q1 2014

An unexpected drop in health care spending -- combined with other factors -- caused the overall gross domestic product to decline by 2.9% in the first quarter of 2014, according to the Department of Commerce's final quarterly GDP estimate, New York Times' "The Upshot" reports (Irwin, "The Upshot," New York Times, 6/25).

The overall drop in GDP was almost three times steeper than the DOC's May estimate for the first quarter, and well below an April forecast of a 0.1% increase in GDP, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

About two-thirds of the decline in GDP, which is used to measure the health of the U.S. economy, was driven by lower-than-expected health care spending, National Journal reports (Berman, National Journal, 6/25). Shrinking business inventories and poor winter weather also contributed to the decline in GDP ("The Upshot," New York Times, 6/25).