The price of keeping up with care costs?
Care is getting more expensive. Insurance premiums are set to go up 10% internationally next year. People are living longer, more sedentary lives, and these are unsurprisingly characterised by an increase in chronic diseases. You might expect that as a population ages healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP will have to go up. There are, after all, surely limits on the efficiencies which can be made. This, it seems, is not necessarily the case.
Ignoring 2020 and 2021, when healthcare spending rose to meet the challenge of the pandemic, healthcare spending barely grew as a proportion of GDP between 2015 and 2019 across the OECD, whilst the percentage of those aged over 65 grew continuously.
Surprisingly, the data suggests there may be little direct correlation between healthcare spending and an ageing population amongst rich countries – suggesting the relationship could be overblown – and where it’s not, that digitalisation and labour-saving techniques could help win the battle of rising costs.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Joe Quiruga or call 0207 183 3779.
