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Has Healthcare Spending Entered a New Phase of Slow Growth?

Lynn Bailey
Mike Switzer/SC Public Radio

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released its report on National Health Expenditures (NHE) for 2017 and it showed an increase of 3.9%, its slowest rate of growth in four years.  No doubt, this report might prompt some to conclude that the health spending spiral is slowing.  But our next guest has serious doubts.

Mike Switzer interviews Lynn Bailey, a Columbia, SC-based healthcare economist and consultant to area hospitals, insurers, entrepreneurs, and investors.

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After almost 20 years, Mike Switzer retired from Wells Fargo Securities in 2001 as Senior Vice President/Investment Officer and Certified Portfolio Manager. In 1999, he and his wife, Maggie, purchased and operated for eight years the Baskin Robbins ice cream store on Forest Drive in Columbia. They grew the store from a bottom-tier operation in the Baskin Robbins franchise system to one in the top 5% nationwide within three years, tripling sales along the way. While operating the ice cream store, Mike and Maggie received patents for a portable ice cream sink and fold-down sneezeguard they invented and in 2002 started Magnolia Carts, an ice cream cart manufacturing company, which they sold in 2013.