Health, technology, and medical care spending

The RAND Future Elderly Model illustrates important principles about the relation among medical technologies, health spending, and health. New technologies add to spending because the costs of the new technologies and the health care costs during the added years of life they bring outweigh reduction...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inHealth affairs (Millwood, Va.) Vol. 24 Suppl 2; pp. W5R81 - W5R85
Main Author Lubitz, James
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States The People to People Health Foundation, Inc., Project HOPE 2005
Subjects
Activities of daily living
Aged
Baby boomers
Beneficiaries
Biomedical Technology - economics
Chronic illnesses
Correlation analysis
Cost control
Cost reduction
Elder care
Health care
Health care expenditures
Health care policy
Health Expenditures - trends
Health maintenance organizations
HMOs
Humans
Insurance coverage
Medical technology
Medicare
Medicare - economics
Middle age
Older people
Population
Statistical data
Technology
Trends
United States
United States
United States > US
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Summary:The RAND Future Elderly Model illustrates important principles about the relation among medical technologies, health spending, and health. New technologies add to spending because the costs of the new technologies and the health care costs during the added years of life they bring outweigh reductions in annual spending from better health. Many technologies with a low cost per patient per year result in high aggregate costs because of an expanded population being treated. However, the jury is still out on whether a better health-risk profile among future sixty-five-year-olds could moderate health spending for the elderly.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0278-2715
1544-5208
DOI:10.1377/hlthaff.w5.r81