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Improving Health Care Cost Projections for the Medicare Population Summary of a Workshop (2010) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
Pages 1-6

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From page 1...
... in 2008 to 11.4 percent by 2083, raising serious solvency issues for the program by 2017. Policy makers face significant challenges managing the program, given not only increases in the size of the beneficiary pool with the increasing size of the aging population, but also increases in average rates of spending per beneficiary resulting from factors specific to health status and health care, such as increasing rates of obesity and the development of new drugs, medical care technology, and medical treatments.
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From page 2...
... Current models for health care cost projections range from a simple projected rate of GDP increase plus a specified percentage, to dynamic microsimulation models that "age" population cohorts over time, to computable general equilibrium models of the health care sector of the economy and long-term health care spending (see examples in Box 1-1)
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From page 3...
... The model controls for demographic and economic factors and allows analysts to explore the effects of current trends or future changes on health care costs. For example, a downward trend in old age disability might imply reductions in health care spending.
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From page 4...
... The workshop was structured to combine invited presentations and discussions among the participants to consider the uses and limitations of alternative modeling approaches, as well as factors that affect health care spending and suggest priorities for research that could support improved projection models, including a long-term research agenda in this area for NIA and others in the field. To set the context and provide background information for the workshop participants, the steering committee commissioned a paper on currently used models for forecasting health care costs for the Medicare population, including their strengths and limitations, their methodological approaches to forecasting, and their applications (see Appendix A)
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From page 5...
... Chapter 3 focuses on modeling medical technology as a driver of Medicare health care spending, and Chapter 4 addresses such factors as obesity, socioeconomic status, chronic diseases, and disability that affect health status as drivers of Medicare health care spending. Chapter 5 focuses on the future in terms of research areas that may advance the current efforts from the perspective of the participants attending the workshop.
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Key Terms

  • care cost
  • care spending
  • health insurance
  • care costs
  • affect health

  • health status
  • medicare population
  • helps cover
  • medicare health
  • projecting health

  • medicare cost
  • care policy
  • medicare costs
  • medicare actuarial
  • medicare expenditures

  • medicare program
  • public workshop
  • improved projection
  • technical review
  • insurance coverage

  • current models
  • projection models
  • policy alternatives
  • declining disability
  • future changes

  • actuarial model
  • disability rates
  • relative merits
  • review panel
  • improve health


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