A government analysis of the new healthcare law says it will not slow the overall growth of health spending because the expansion of insurance and services to 34 million people will offset cost reductions in Medicare and other programs. In the report, chief Medicare actuary Richard S. Foster Foster said that some provisions of the law, including cutbacks in Medicare payments to healthcare providers and a tax on high-cost employer-sponsored coverage, would slow the growth of health costs. But he said the savings "would be more than offset through 2019 by the higher health expenditures resulting from the coverage expansions," the New York Times reports.