Medicare will spend $511 billion less between now and 2020 than was predicted two and a half years ago, according to the latest number crunching by the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities. More importantly, this drop occurred completely separate from any changes in government policy — rather, it resulted from an overall slowdown in the growth of health care costs.

The last time the Congress and the President actually altered Medicare policy in order to bring down the program’s spending was when they passed health reform in March of 2010. By comparing the Congressional Budget Office’s projections from August of that year with their projections from earlier this month, and by leaving out the the SGR cuts and the Medicare cuts in sequestration, the CBPP was able to isolate how much Medicare’s spending is anticipated to drop due purely to changes in the health care markets. And the drop is considerably larger than the proactive cuts in Medicare spending the Simpson-Bowles plan was calling for back in December of 2010:

According to the CBO itself, its projections for Medicare and Medicaid spending between now and 2022 dropped 3.5 percent since its previous projection in August of 2012.

Spending on Medicare and Medicaid is the main driver of the country’s long-term debt problem. But because the programs buy health care, larger economic forces in the health care market that drive up costs also drive up their spending, regardless of any specific policy enacted by lawmakers. Conversely, if health costs begin to slow, that will bring spending down — and there’s evidence that’s exactly what’s happened over the last few years.

Between 2009 and 2011, all spending in the health care system, both public and private, grew at 3.9 percent — the lowest annual rates we’ve seen in 52 years. 2012 looks like it will turn out to be similarly sluggish. Some of this is certainly due to the recession and ongoing depression. But an increasing number of economists and experts are convinced a big piece of the slowdown is also a more permanent restructuring of the way health care markets buy, sell, and deliver care.

No small part of that change may be due, in turn, to the passage of Obamacare, which put in place a host of new incentives and reforms to move health care delivery in a more efficient direction. And if Obamacare’s reforms continue pushing the health care system to adapt, then the United State’s fiscal future could continue to improve without lawmakers having to cut a dime.

Scientists may be close to finding a cure for sickle cell anemia, a blood disease that disproportionately affects African-Americans.

One in 500 African descendants born in the United States suffer from sickle cell; one in 12 carry the gene for it. The disease can cause symptoms as minor as fatigue, or as major as organ damage. A person suffering from sickle cell has defective hemoglobin that leads to abnormally shaped red blood cells, which get caught in the veins and cause circulation issues.

But a long-term experiment run out of the University of Michigan Medical School found that doctors might be able to treat these symptoms by using an antidepressant:

Their study, which includes more than 30 years of research, found that the antidepressant tranylcypromine, or TCP, may essentially reverse the effects of the disorder.[...]

But while U-M scientists say it’s too early to test out TCP as a treatment for sickle cell disease, they’re confident their findings hold promise.[...]

The first clinical trial on TCP and its affect on sickle cell is now being planned with researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit. Further information will be available later this year if it receives approval to go forward.

African-Americans disproportionately struggle to access the health care they need. Socioeconomic and environmental reasons — and the root cause, racism — are, of course, the reason for the disparity. Ultimately, the lack of care for back communities might funnel down to the research level. It’s suspected that less funding is awarded for research toward diseases that affect black people at a higher rate than white.

More than 800 man-made chemicals found in everyday products — in your household cleaners, makeup, electronics, canned food, and clothing — are becoming “a global threat that needs to be resolved,” according to a new report from the World Health Organization and United Nations Environment Program. Research links these hormone-disrupting chemicals to a host of medical problems, including certain cancers, birth defects, and other diseases.

These chemicals include phthalates and BPA, which are both used in plastics. The U.S., Canada, and parts of Europe have banned them in some products for children, but Endocrine Distrupting Chemicals (called EDCs) still lurk in the hundreds of thousands around the world. “The vast majority of chemicals” in common use have not even been tested for safety, report authors wrote.

The report takes a more urgent tone on EDCs than a 2002 WHO report that found evidence of man-made chemicals’ harm to be “weak.”

Since then, the link between everyday chemical exposure and health problems has become clearer. A separate study last year showed that exposure can be harmful to humans even in small doses. The Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency continue to study BPA’s dangers in low doses.

“Frankly, for BPA, the science is done. Flame retardants, phthalates … the science is done,” WHO report co-author Thomas Zoeller told Environmental Health News. “We have more than enough information on these chemicals to make the reasonable decision to ban, or at least take steps to limit exposure.”

But one major hurdle to addressing and regulating toxic chemicals in the U.S. involves battling industry groups like the American Chemistry Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which have waged campaigns against Environmental Protection Agency oversight of toxic chemicals.