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According to a recent report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, total U.S. healthcare spending rose 3.9% in 2011. This marks the third year in a row healthcare spending has increased by just 3.9%, which is in-line with overall GDP and inflation growth for the economy as a whole. For the period between 2009 to 2011, healthcare spending has remained at 17.9% of GDP. The last three years represent the slowest rate of healthcare spending growth in the 52 years since the release of the report. Healthcare spending grew at a 4.4% clip in 2008, which was the previous lowest level of increase. For a point of reference, in 1970 total healthcare spending represented only 7.2% of GDP.

There is a debate about why healthcare spending is now growing in-line with the overall economy rather than growing much faster than the economy as a whole. Some point to the economic slowdown as the reason for the decline citing an increase in the Medicaid rolls. But healthcare spending slowed markedly in 2008 and the economy didn't enter a deep slump until the second half of 2008. Some point to provisions in the Affordable Health Care Act (known as ObamaCare), but that was only enacted in 2009 and many of its provisions are delayed until 2013 and 2014. Unfortunately, others point to a recent slowdown in innovation and medical breakthroughs with fewer products enjoying patent protection from competition. Whatever the combination of reasons, a trend is now firmly established that runaway spending on healthcare is a thing of the past and not of the present. Of course healthcare spending could always resume a faster pace of growth than the economy as a whole in the future.

Health Insurance Companies have been big winners from the slowdown in healthcare spending. The reduced payouts have led to an increase in profits for the largest insurance companies over the last three years like Wellpoint (WLP), Aetna (AET), and Cigna (CI). But some of the biggest and often over-looked winners of reduced healthcare spending are large self insurers like AT&T (T), Chevron (CVX), Macy's (M), and Bank of America (BAC).

However, by far the biggest winner from a reduction in healthcare spending is the federal government and the U.S. Taxpayers. With the aging of the Baby Boomers federal healthcare spending is projected to rise from 44% of total healthcare spending to 50% of total healthcare spending by 2020. The Centers of Medicare and Medicaid also estimated healthcare spending would grow at a rate of 5.8% between 2010 and 2020 and the cost of federal spending on healthcare as a percentage of GDP would more than double by 2050. But the current actual healthcare spending growth rate of 3.9%, which more importantly is in-line with overall economic growth, brings those projections into serious question. It is possible we no longer have a long term federal deficit problem due to rapidly rising healthcare spending and most of us don't know it.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

West Texas Intermediate spot crude prices closed at $98.30 on September 13, the day the Federal Reserve announced QE3. On September 24 the spot price closed at $91.93, a decline of over 6%. One reason for the price decline could be the old saw buy the rumor and sell the news as crude oil prices rallied into the Federal Reserve's decision in anticipation of QE3. But another reason for the price decline could be an assessment that the global economy is slowing and the current size of QE3 is inadequate to create strong enough global growth. According to the IMF head Christine Lagarde "We continue to project a gradual recovery, but global growth will likely be a bit weaker than we had anticipated even in July, and our forecast has trended downward over the last 12 months." The forecast takes into account the Federal Reserves QE3 program announced 11 days earlier.

The Federal Reserve has a dual mandate of stable inflation and full employment. In order to help boost employment the Fed announced QE3 with this statement "to support a stronger economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at the rate most consistent with its dual mandate, the Committee agreed today to increase policy accommodation by purchasing additional agency mortgage-backed securities at a pace of $40 billion per month. The Committee also will continue through the end of the year its program to extend the average maturity of its holdings of securities as announced in June, and it is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities. These actions, which together will increase the Committee's holdings of longer-term securities by about $85 billion each month through the end of the year, should put downward pressure on longer-term interest rates, support mortgage markets, and help to make broader financial conditions more accommodative."

By launching QE3 the Federal Reserve is not only hoping to see an increase in employment, it is also hoping to see an uptick in inflation expectations back to its 2% target. Higher inflation helps to create demand because it is better to buy a product one needs or wants today than to wait and pay a higher price tomorrow. Other than housing and wages, there is no more important input into inflation than the price of oil. Although the CPI calculates inflation with an ex-Food and Energy component, the increase in oil prices filters into many goods that use oil or need transportation that are not part of the ex-Food and Energy CPI calculation but are part of the Core CPI. The decline in oil prices could be signaling that the markets believe despite creating an extra $40 billion a month, it is not enough to raise inflation expectations sufficiently to stimulate demand enough to offset all of the headwinds the economy is facing.

The Federal Reserve has left QE3 open ended with a periodic review to increase or decrease the size of the asset purchases. A further decline in oil prices could lead the Federal Reserve to raise the size of its asset purchases with new money above $40 billion. While oil has fallen since the announcement of QE3, gold has risen in price and held its gains. This could indicate the best way to benefit in an increased round of QE3 is with gold and not oil. Rather than investing in an oil ETF like the United States Oil Fund (USO) investors could purchase the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), or buy a gold mining company like Newmont Mining (NEM), Barrick Gold (ABX), GoldCorp (GG), Anglico Eagle Mines (AEM), or Yamana Gold (AUY). At this point it seems the price of gold is being driven more by Fed expectations and the price of oil is being driven more by expectations of the economic outlook.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.