Spending on what?

A New York Times story this morning on the state budget deal to eliminate a huge deficit (big tax hikes, pork barrel spending and spending up 8.7 per cent in a stellar display of restraint) ends its first paragraph by saying the plan "would close the state’s gaping deficit with billions of dollars in new taxes, financing from the federal stimulus and a substantial slowdown in the growth of health care spending." Massive, unaffordable health care spending? By a government? In the United States? Why weren't we told?