{"id":131,"date":"2013-03-16T13:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-16T17:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=131"},"modified":"2013-03-16T13:12:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-16T17:12:00","slug":"will-boomers-bankrupt-our-health-care-system-myths-and-facts-health-beat-by-maggie-mahar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"Will Boomers Bankrupt Our Health Care System? Myths and Facts | Health Beat by Maggie Mahar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.healthbeatblog.com\/2008\/03\/will-boomers-ba\/#.UUSnq5LcuRY.blogger\">Will Boomers Bankrupt Our Health Care System? Myths and Facts | Health Beat by Maggie Mahar<\/a><\/p>\n<p><i>Well worth reading, with some great Uwe Reinhardt graphics!<\/i> <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When the three-day conference ended yesterday, it also was apparent  that developed countries share many of the same problems.&nbsp; One that  stands out is the fact that our populations are aging. Each country  faces the same question: how will a shrinking workforce possibly pay for  the medicine their nations\u2019 retirees will need?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>This brings me to Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt\u2019s speech on the  very first day of the conference. The only American to speak at WHCCE,  Reinhardt focused on what he called \u201cthe folklore that people bring to  the health care policy table.\u201d By nature an iconoclast, Reinhardt spent  the next 20 minutes shattering some of the myths that have become part  of the received wisdom among policy-makers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Begin with the notion that an aging population is a major factor  driving health care inflation.&nbsp; In the U.S. this is accepted as a  justification for why the nation\u2019s health care bill now equals more than  $2 trillion dollars\u2014and why we must expect it to climb ever higher.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><p>Bad news is often more gripping&nbsp; than good news, and&nbsp; \u201cif you want to  be a popular speaker you need to feed the paranoia of your audience,\u201d  Reinhardt&nbsp; observed, pointing to the first slide of his Power Point  presentation\u2014a&nbsp; chart illustrating just how quickly we can expect a  horde of wrinkly boomers to take over the nation. Some stooped and  shriveled, others proudly bloated, these former members of the Pepsi  generation will be far more demanding, we\u2019re told, than the World War II  veterans who preceded them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Will Boomers Bankrupt Our Health Care System? Myths and Facts | Health Beat by Maggie Mahar Well worth reading, with some great Uwe Reinhardt graphics! When the three-day conference ended &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=131\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Will Boomers Bankrupt Our Health Care System? Myths and Facts | Health Beat by Maggie Mahar&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-medicare"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}