How to Think about Future Health Care Spending | Health Care Reform Center

by Victor R. Fuchs, Ph.D.

An important element in the debate over health care reform concerns the level of future health care expenditures. Congress makes explicit projections of federal government spending over the next decade and implicitly tries to take account of all other health care spending. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is obliged to provide its best estimates of future costs, which then play a large role in debates over health care reform. The media dutifully report these numbers, and pundits argue about whether they are too high or too low. Lost in the din are two critical problems related to future spending — one empirical, the other conceptual.
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