If these trends are more than a benign anomaly, they would not only ease pressure on the Medicare budget, but would moderate government health spending generally, a development that could vaporize concerns about the growing cost of entitlement programs.  As analysts of all political stripes have been saying, America’s government doesn’t have a spending problem; it has a health spending problem.  

Every few days, text messages like these pop up on the phones of more than 1,000 women in Fresno County, in California’s Central Valley. The messages come in Spanish, alternately offering referrals for affordable healthcare and domestic violence services, legal tips and affirmations. Any resource offered via text has been vetted by a team of women behind the project, called Únete Latina, to confirm that providers there speak Spanish and won’t ask for a Social Security number.

For months, hundreds of community members and advocates participated in workshops throughout California to figure out how to spend millions generated through the state’s cap-and-trade program. Just when the groups finally hammered out an investment plan that would start to pump money back to communities, Gov. Brown proposed Tuesday to divert that money to the general fund.