Boomers will bow weak medical systems
As a surprise to no one, a new report by the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, says the prognosis for Medicare and future medical care for aging American baby boomers is decidedly unhealthy.
Though the generation born after World War II for years has wrongly been considered homogeneously liberal and self-indulgent, there is little doubt its sheer size has altered every social landscape through which it passed. That it will do the same to Social Security and Medicare and health care in general can hardly come as a shock.
Its entrance into the land of senior citizenship occurs with Medicare already in serious financial trouble. New rules to shore it up financially are likely to drive more and more doctors from participation.
"This July, the government will begin steep cuts in Medicare physician payments, and 60 percent of physicians say this will force them to limit the number of new Medicare patients they can treat," said a statement from the American Medical Association.
That will only exacerbate problems identified in the study, which include not enough specialists in geriatric medicine, insufficient training, underpaid specialists and a failure of Medicare to provide team care.
"We face an impending crisis as the growing number of older patients … increasingly outpaces the number of health-care providers with the knowledge and skills to care for them capably," said John W. Rowe, who headed the committee that compiled the report. The report found there are only 7,100 doctors certified in geriatrics, one per every 2,500 older Americans, not a prescription for personal, quality care.
Other problems noted in the report included Medicare's focus on short-term rather than chronic problems, lack of preventive services and discouragement of medical collaboration.
AARP, an advocacy group for older Americans, said the report highlights the need for immediate action to improve and expand the nation's health-care and long-term care work force. To that end, it supports a bipartisan bill in Congress intended to steer prospective health-care workers to geriatric and long-term care fields.
That may help. But if payments don't cover the cost of providing services in a health-care system where finding private insurance is dicey and costs are already out of control, medical providers simply won't participate. That means the growing trend of Americans seeking medical care in Southeast Asia is likely to grow, at least for those who have the means to pursue it.
Flying to their doctor's appointment won't, of course, be an option for the many others caught in a medical care system likely to buckle under the sheer weight of the number of patients seeking services from too few providers.