In the long run,
the facts are on the side of the optimists.
To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., the arc of history bends toward progress. But progress doesn't just happen. People work hard to discover ways forward.
The What Works Initiative
highlights positive outcomes on difficult issues – and how people achieved them.
For decades, policy wonks have assumed that longer life expectancies have a dark side – longer old ages of poor health, diminished capacity, and high medical bills. Better than the alternative certainly … mostly. But a costly burden on the Medicare system.
A new study looks closely and sees a different story. A deep dive into nearly thirty years of Social Security and Medicare data shows that while Americans added an average of 2.4 years to their lifespans over that time, the lifetime costs of Social Security rose more than twice as much as Medicare costs. The upshot, per the study:
“The additional 2.4 years of remaining life expectancy were entirely healthy – free of physical or cognitive limitations – while the expected amount of time spent with severe health limitations fell by about 30%, reducing expected lifetime nursing-home and home-health use.”
We still have an aging population. That’s a major reason Medicare costs still rose. But the limitations and loss we link to aging are peeling away.
Source: “Elderly Health and Longevity in the US: Evidence and Implications,”Working paper 35346, NBER