> Point to the spot in that table where private practices began merging with hospital systems and tell me why things were better in the instant before that spot.
That's a strawman. No one asserted they all merged at the same time in a way that this sort of 30,000 foot overview would illustrate, nor that the effects would be instantaneous.
> I took the time to assemble and present the data
I mean, as a bit of feedback on that work, it'd be substantially more useful if the site said whether or not it's at least inflation adjusted. Population adjustment would be handy, too.
I think you want take that up with Medicare; this is just an NHE XLS put up on a web page. I don't know how any of that would change your argument, because you didn't actually make an argument here.