susan dentzer is with us once again. she's the editor in chief of the journal health he health affairs and an occasional analyst for the newshour. good to have you back with us. >> great to be back, judy. >> woodruff: before anything else, let me ask you about something the president said to the seniors today. want to assure you that your medicare benefits are not going to change. at the same time we are reporting there's going to be a $500 billion cut in medicare benefits in the future. how do you reconcile that. >> not a cut in benefits. the $500 billion people should understand is a $500 billion slowdown in the rate of growth. medicare spending is still going to grow substantially. the last couple of decades medicare has grown 4% per year per beneficiary. in the future it will grow 2% per year per beneficiary. so spending is still going to go up, including for benefits. it's just that hospitals in particular aren't going to see their payments rise as quickly as they would have otherwise. there will be other entities t