Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Blanco-Moreno, Ángela
• Urbanos-Garrido, Rosa M
• Thuissard-Vasallo, Israel John

Titel

Public healthcare expenditure in Spain: Measuring the impact of driving factors

Ist Teil von

• Health policy (Amsterdam), 2013-06, Vol.111 (1), p.34-42

Ort / Verlag

Amsterdam: Elsevier Ireland Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Abstract Objectives To assess the impact of demography, health status, death related costs and some macroeconomic variables on the evolution of health expenditure. Methods We follow the methodology used by the Ageing Working Group (AWG) of the European Union to simulate expenditure projections on the basis of healthcare expenditure profiles for age–sex population groups. We estimate the profiles using data from Hospital Discharges Statistics and the Spanish National Health Survey. Results The differences between the compression of morbidity scenario and the expansion of morbidity scenario range from 1.35 to 1.57 points of GDP in 2060. The overestimation of healthcare expenditure when death related costs are ignored ranges from 0.04 to 0.11 percentage points, depending on the health status hypothesis. Moreover, the effect of death related cost diminishes as health status improves. Conclusions Our results support the fact that intensity of healthcare use, instead of ageing, is the main driver of health expenditure. Thus, the concern of keeping expenditure under control should be focused on factors such as the population's health status, economic growth and development, new technologies and medical progress, and the organization and management of the healthcare system.