There haven't been many happy stories to cut through the doom and gloom surrounding America's out-of-control, paycheck eating, budget-busting healthcare costs. But here's one of them, graphed by researchers at the Altarum Institute. Over the past decade, the growth of total U.S. medical spending has actually slowed by about half, falling from an annual rate of more than 8 percent in 2003 to 4 percent in 2012.