The Rising Burden of Health Spending on Seniors (PDF; 236 KB)
Source: National Center for Policy Analysis
From press release:

In less than two decades, half of everything seniors consume may be health care, according to a new study by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). For today’s oldest seniors, this has already happened.
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The study notes that total health care spending on the elderly – including both out-of-pocket spending by seniors and third-party expenditures – will constitute a growing portion of seniors’ “total potential consumption.” “Total potential consumption” includes everything seniors can consume: all their personal income plus all health care expenditures by third parties net of premium payments.

• Health care today makes up about two-of-every-five dollars of seniors’ total potential consumption – 43 percent.
• In just 17 years (by 2024), health care will equal 50 percent of seniors’ total consumption.
• For the oldest seniors – age 75 and older – health care already makes up more than half of all they consume.

Since Social Security represents such a large portion of seniors’ retirement income – particularly for older seniors – examining health spending as a percentage of Social Security benefits is also informative:

• Today’s seniors spend an amount equal to 44.5 percent of their Social Security benefits on health care.
• The amount will rise to 60.9 percent by 2030 and to 81.3 percent by mid-century.
• By 2070, almost all (93.4 percent) of seniors’ Social Security checks will be dedicated to spending on health and medical care.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Age and Aging, Consumer issues, Health and healthcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.