Aging and the health-care system: economic and structural issues ( US).

Resolving the conflict between the expanding health needs of an aging society and the pressures to constrain budgetary and economic resources devoted to health care will not be easy. One relatively painless strategy would be to reduce the health-service requirements of the population by investing in preventive health measures and in biomedical research to prevent or to cure those diseases that now demand such heavy health expenditures. Another approach would be to introduce more effective controls for health expenditures. A third approach, would be to share the burden of health-care expenditures for an aging population more equitably among all members of society. Describes the current and future projected course of health expenditures in the U.S. in the context of prospective population; examines inequities in the current health financing system; and analyzes options for altering the future course of the health-care system in the U.S. and for resolving the conflict between the expanding health needs of an aging population and a climate of constrained resources. -from Author