Get the government more involved in health care, and public bean counters will spend much more time developing an ?official? answer to that question.
It?s an idea explored in a new TIME article, which speculates about the impact of a hypothetical pill unveiled in 2012 ?that could increase life expectancy for every 50-plus American by 10 years.?
While this pill would constitute a medical miracle, not everyone would be happy:
Not surprisingly, this gray boom wouldn’t come cheap. If life expectancy increases 10 years in 2012 and later, by 2028, annual Medicare expenditures alone would more than double relative to current levels, reaching $1 trillion. They’d double again to $2 trillion by 2050 and top out at $3 trillion in 2080. Total expenditures ? including Social Security and disability ? would be $10 trillion by that final year. In the real world, of course, life expectancy doesn’t increase in [a] sudden way ?, but it can increase fast ? as America’s addition of almost 30 years in a single century shows. [T]he financial burdens on societies will inevitably grow as people live longer.
What drives up the medical portion of the costs so fast is that the mere ability to hang around till you’re nearly 90 doesn’t mean you’re hanging around healthily. A study by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund found that up to 20% of people entering Medicare are already suffering from five or more chronic conditions, such as hypertension or high cholesterol. Most of those ills are treatable, but not always inexpensively, and every extra year of life is another ring of the cash register.
What?s the likely result of that increased ?social cost?? Death panels, anyone?
On another note, this article repeats a point Shaftesbury Society audience members will remember from Duke professor John Staddon?s presentation on the costs of smoking. The article warns us ?eliminating smoking may boost Medicare costs $293 billion, because people would live longer and make more claims.?
Click play below for Staddon?s thoughts on the topic.
