Increasing longevity and Medicare expenditures.

Publisher: Duke University Press Country of Publication: United States NLM ID: 0226703 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Print ISSN: 0070-3370 (Print) Linking ISSN: 00703370 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Demography Subsets: MEDLINE

Publication: 2021- : Durham, NC : Duke University Press
Original Publication: Washington, etc., Population Assn. of America.

Health Planning* ; Models, Econometric* ; Population Dynamics*; Health Expenditures/*statistics & numerical data ; Medicare/*statistics & numerical data; Accounting ; Aged ; Forecasting ; Health Expenditures/trends ; Health Status ; Health Status Indicators ; Humans ; Life Expectancy ; Medicare/economics ; Morbidity ; Taxes ; United States ; Value of Life

Official Medicare projections forecast that the elderly population will be less healthy and more costly over the next century. This prediction stems from the use of age as an indicator of health status: increases in longevity are assumed to increase demand for health care as individuals survive to older and higher-use ages. In this paper I suggest an alternative approach, in which time until death replaces age as the demographic indicator of health status. Increases in longevity are assumed to postpone the higher Medicare use and costs associated with the final decade of life. I contrast the two approaches, using mortality forecasts consistent with recent projections from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Social Security Administration. The time-until-death method yields significantly lower-cost forecasts. The hypothetical cost savings from improved health care small, however, relative to the size of the Medicare solvency problem caused by population aging.

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R37-AG11761 United States AG NIA NIH HHS

Date Created: 20010608 Date Completed: 20011018 Latest Revision: 20190515

20221213

10.1353/dem.2001.0018

11392909