Health Affairs

Posting date: September 26, 2005

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Health Affairs, 10.1377/hlthaff.w5.r81
Copyright © 2005 by Project HOPE

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Health, Technology, And Medical Care Spending

James Lubitz ^1*

¹ James Lubitz is a distinguished consultant at the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland.

^*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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.

Key Words: Chronic Care, Demography, Elderly, Health Promotion/Disease Prevention, Medicare, Research And Technology, Health Spending

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