Zócalo Public Square, a Los Angeles-based live-journalism organization, and the Health Futures Council hosted a panel discussion on Tuesday at the Arizona Science Center asking experts “Will the Aging of America Bankrupt the Health Care System?”
The conversation addressed the possibility that the Medicare trust fund will be empty by 2030 due to the addition of millions of senior citizens to the healthcare system.
The event at Arizona State University was moderated by Anna Wilde Mathews, health insurance and policy reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who led the discussion with the question of how the “baby boomer” generation will impact the health care system.
Marjorie Baldwin, an ASU professor of economics, said that although the state of the healthcare system is not bad now, it is likely to worsen in the near future.
Baldwin said the current system needs to be updated as it was created when the average life expectancy was 70 years old.
“We know the crisis is coming,” Baldwin said. “The sooner we do something about it, the easier the fix.”
Lawrence Atkins, executive director of Long-Term Quality Alliance, said health care expenditures are at an all-time high in the United States.
“There is a very substantial health care growth in this country,” he said.
Baldwin said rationing health care resources is a necessary step to helping the system stay afloat.
“We cannot have it all,” she said.
John Rother, CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, said health care today greatly depends on the economic standing of the beneficiaries.
Rother said the ability to be more clear on what provides value and enhances care will benefit healthcare quality.
“Let’s not pretend there is not rationing going on today,” Rother said.
Keith Dines, CEO of Arizona Integrated Physicians, said health care systems need to be looked at as “consumer-based business models” to reduce costs by providing alternative methods for cheaper treatments and care.
Another solution for reducing costs is to provide more information about valuable and effective care for beneficiaries in order to reduce costs, Rother said.
Atkins said the healthcare system needs to be more careful when “charging to value” for drug development. He added the system does not have an effective way of monitoring accurate values of pharmaceutical products.
“We are in a world where drug development is far more expensive,” Atkins said.
The prices of pharmaceutical drugs are not based on value but instead the price the companies think beneficiaries will be willing to pay, Rother said. The price of pharmaceuticals is currently not affordable for the public, he said.
Baldwin said the United States produces the vast majority of innovative drugs. The pharmaceutical industry is not the driving force of health care costs, which makes up only 10 percent of medical costs in the system. Healthcare costs will rely on lowering the rates of hospital and physician expenses.
Contact the reporter at jmagtiba@asu.edu.
Editor’s note: Community section editor Kelsey Hess used to work for Zócalo Public Square. She did not contribute to the reporting of this story.
