title: Prevention, declining mortality rates, and the cost of Medicare.
abstract: It is commonly assumed that with declining adult mortality rates, the elderly population will continue to increase and become a major fiscal problem for the Medicare program. However, this population, like other age groups, consists of a small number of frequent medical-care users and a large number of low-frequency users. If the decline in mortality rates occurs as a result of primary and secondary prevention efforts rather than tertiary interventions, a 26.4 percent increase in the population 65 years of age and older could result in only a 19.4 percent increase in gross Medicare expenditures and a slight decline in net Medicare expenditures.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005102:Health Expenditures; D006296:Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D006278:Medicare / Q000191:economics*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009017:Morbidity; D009026:Mortality; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011322:Primary Prevention; D014481:United States