Health and Aged Care in the Intergenerational report

To the extent that Australians have followed the ‘story’ in the intergenerational reports (IGRs), they see the future of health care as becoming increasingly costly due to population ageing. Yet that story is overstated, partly due to the increase in participation among older workers noted by Peter McDonald in Chapter 4, and partly because of a failure to analyse the actual drivers of health expenditure. Factors such as the higher volumes of services being used per case of disease and population growth are more important considerations in driving growth in health expenditure, and, looking forward, potential changes in patterns of disease are also an important consideration