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Aging and Future Healthcare Expenditure: A Consistent Approach

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Author Info
Lukas Steinmann (Avenir Suisse, Switzerland)
Harry Telser (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Peter Zweifel (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Abstract

The impact of aging on healthcare expenditure (HCE) has been at the center of a prolonged debate. This paper purports to shed light on several issues of this debate by presenting new evidence on the "red herring" hypothesis advanced by Zweifel, Felder and Meier (1999). This hypothesis amounts to distinguishing a mortality from a morbidity component in healthcare expenditure (HCE) and claiming that failure to make this distinction results in excessive estimates of future growth of HCE. A re-estimation based on a much larger data set is performed, using the refined econometric methodology. The main contribution is consistency, however. Rather than treating the mortality component as a residual in forecasting, its dynamics are analyzed in the same detail as that of the morbidity component when predicting the impact of population aging on the future growth of HCE. For the case of Switzerland, it finds this impact to be relatively small regardless of whether or not the mortality component is accounted for, thus qualifying the "red herring" hypothesis.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Berkeley Electronic Press in its journal Forum for Health Economics & Policy.

Volume (Year): 10 (2007)
Issue (Month): 2 ()
Pages: 1041-1041
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Handle: RePEc:bep:fhecpo:v:10:y:2007:i:2:p:1041-1041

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Related research
Keywords: health econometrics aging cost of dying healthcare expenditure

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Van Tielen, Rudy & Peys, Frank & Genaert, Jean, 1998. "The demographic impact on ambulatory pharmaceutical expenditure in Belgium," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 1-14, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Meena Seshamani & Alastair Gray, 2004. "Ageing and health-care expenditure: the red herring argument revisited," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 303-314. [Downloadable!]
  3. Sally C. Stearns & Edward C. Norton, 2004. "Time to include time to death? The future of health care expenditure predictions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 315-327. [Downloadable!]
  4. Gerdtham, Ulf-G. & Sogaard, Jes & Andersson, Fredrik & Jonsson, Bengt, 1992. "An econometric analysis of health care expenditure: A cross-section study of the OECD countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 63-84, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Hitiris, Theo & Posnett, John, 1992. "The determinants and effects of health expenditure in developed countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 173-181, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Friedrich Breyer & Stefan Felder, 2004. "Life Expectancy and Health Care Expenditures : A New Calculation for Germany Using the Costs of Dying," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 452, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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  7. David M. Cutler & Ellen Meara, 1999. "The Concentration of Medical Spending: An Update," NBER Working Papers 7279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Peter Zweifel & Stefan Felder & Markus Meiers, 1999. "Ageing of population and health care expenditure: a red herring?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(6), pages 485-496.
  9. Andreas Werblow & Stefan Felder & Peter Zweifel, 2007. "Population ageing and health care expenditure: a school of 'red herrings'?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(10), pages 1109-1126. [Downloadable!]
  10. Joseph Hilbe, 1993. "Generalized linear models," Stata Technical Bulletin, StataCorp LP, vol. 2(11). [Downloadable!]
  11. Peter Zweifel & Stefan Felder & Andreas Werblow, 2004. "Population Ageing and Health Care Expenditure: New Evidence on the "Red Herring"," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, The International Association for the Study of Insurance Economics, vol. 29(4), pages 652-666, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Jones-Lee, M W & Hammerton, M & Philips, P R, 1985. "The Value of Safety: Results of a National Sample Survey," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(377), pages 49-72, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Christian Salas & James P. Raftery, 2001. "Econometric issues in testing the age neutrality of health care expenditure," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(7), pages 669-671. [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Sophie Mitra & Patricia A. Findley & Usha Sambamoorthi, 2008. "Healthcare Expenditures of Living with a Disability: Total Expenditures, Out of Pocket Expenses and Burden, 1996-2004," Fordham Economics Discussion Paper Series dp2008-18, Fordham University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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