What is the position taken in the Mythbuster?
The aging population in Canada is increasing at a very high rate, following retirement of the baby-boom generation. As a result, there is allegedly excessive strain on healthcare as the older adults require medication than younger people. This necessitates increase in taxes or cut in services to the public. However, while aging population in the society may be considered a health care concern, Mythbusters (2011) suggests that factors that increase the costs of health care such as technological innovation cost should be given the primary consideration as they are more consequential.
Why is this important issue?
The issue of aging of the population is very critical, especially because it becomes worrisome when the health expenses increase and policymakers left with a dilemma on what to focus on in addressing the situation. They keep wondering whether the aging population per se is the real cause of the trouble, but it becomes important to consider the concrete cost drivers while charting out corrective policies. After all, experts’ evidence shows that the aging population’s contribution to the steadily increasing expenditure on health care is very minimal. It is therefore critical to understand the main cause of the health care expenditure increase rather than attributing it to aging population without much certainty or information. Furthermore, good understanding of the real factors that drives the cost of healthcare provision is very important when controlling the healthcare budget (Mythbusters, 2011).
Do you agree or disagree?
I strongly agree with the issues set out in this observation, mainly, the fact that the cost drivers require our foremost attention. Despite the disagreement in regard to the exact factor that requires greater attention, the cost driver that results from technology and prescription of drugs is a major factor that has increased healthcare expenditure for several years. Many experts have actually cited out new medical technology and drugs prescription expenditure as an overriding contributor to the swelling of overall health expenditure, notwithstanding the recent phenomenal decline in expenditure on drugs prescription. In addition, information technology (IT) is the other influential technological cost driver that has had dramatic impact on health spending. Increased use of electronic medical records (EMR) has been allocated hefty budget with the intention of improving efficiency of healthcare service delivery. This has actually been a central agenda in many health reform plans (Mythbusters, 2011).
My opinion is fundamentally supported by the analyst’s declaration that application of state-of-the-art; expensive technological services as well as new drugs stimulate health care expenditure. This observation is made with due acknowledgment that the industry must recoup the development costs of such products and for the reason that they stimulate consumer demand for stronger and expensive services regardless of their cost-effectiveness. Having this in mind, I would envision that any national health reform efforts should have the aforementioned costs as the central element of consideration (Mythbusters, 2011).
Furthermore, sustainability of healthcare shows that utilization surges have a strong relationship to the medical and technological developments. In conclusion, as the population of the aged surges, it has been observed that the health care cost increases in tandem but when analyzing this more carefully, it is found that the impact of aged population is rather minimal. I contend that the policy debates must continue having healthcare costs at the forefront-as the policymakers chart out the way forward with the mission of enacting comprehensive healthcare reforms.
Reference
Mythbusters. (2011). Myth: The aging population is to blame for uncontrollable healthcare costs. Web.