Demographic Paper: With the aging population

HCS/490

January 16, 2012

Demographic changes have effects on everything and most of the time people may not consider the extent of this or how it will affect others such as what the changes will have on the aging population. Changes may include the effects of his or her medical benefits, employment options, retirement, social security, housing, and most important who will provide care for the aging family members.

Since entering into the new millennium, The United States has been challenged with the meeting of many demands that our aging population requires. For example, the increase there has been in the health costs, financing and delivery of health care for the older population, and the worries about health care quality is a serious challenge for health care. Health care is researched, and this is needed to help the aging population benefit from the advances in clinical, biomedical, and behavioral research. Aging adults face the challenges of chronic diseases that contributes to the diminishment of life, disability, and the increase that is seen with the cost of long-term health care. The number of older individuals is expected to increase always over time because somewhere someone is aging, and this will affect the penalties for public health, delivery systems, health care financing, informal care giving, and pension systems. Furthermore, other Countries around the world have been known to pay much more attention to the aging population, and an extensive number of these individuals and growing amount of chronic disease will place tension on resources in countries where simple public health concerns are yet to be tackled fully (S. Jacobzone, 2000).

Baby boomers have to face challenges and changes that he or she will endure as they age and enter a new stage in life. New issues will arise for people as he or she ages such as an increase in his or her health problems, and expenses some may face issues with earlier decisions that were made in life and as he or she ages this will have an enormous impact later in life more than ever with economic wellbeing. The Baby Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964 this is about 78 million people and according to the U.S. Census Bureau 2006 the number of those whom will turn 60 each day was about 7,918 this information reveals the increase that will be seen over the next two decades with the aging population. The prediction of 65 and older population will be triple and the 85 and older will increase fivefold by 2070 (Rood-Wilson 2010). It seems that more of the aging population is living to the age of 65 this has been the normal accepted age for retirement, and it has been shown that if a person reaches age 65 the men will live to 82 and women will see 85. One must factor racial and ethnic background as well this always makes a difference for example, there is a two year gap between a White man, and an African American man and a 1.4-year difference between a White women, and an African American women. As people age he or she and family may believe that Medicare will cover the greater part of his or her health care costs and the hopes that Medicaid will take up the long-term nursing care one may need, but with the rising costs that have been seen in health care, and the growing demands for public services such as Medicaid, and the decline for the working age laborers that have invested in the "pay as you go" pension systems are causing alarm for those entering retirement age and the fiscal pressures that the state and federal government are facing (Rood-Wilson 2010). Additionally, Michigan's residents shown that in September 2009 there were 11.7% or 1.15 million people that did not have health care coverge, but only 1.7% of those 65 and older were uninsured although most of this group was covered under Medicare, but people must remember that the absence of health coverage for people during the early and middle parts of one's life will in the end affect the health care status and access to health care. People may not realize what consists of demographic changes, but as we can see this can be shifts in the economy, and any life changes people may have or experience, but the biggest impact that will be seen from isolated or marginalized from employment or resources in class-based societies (Rood-Wilson 2010). Over the last decade New York State as seen changes in the demographic phases with the population and most affected are the seniors because of the need for long-term care, compounding health, social, and economic problems the elderly face with mobility limitations, and minority elderly. This number is growing at a faster rate than the general population. New York has 11.3% of people age 65-plus live in poverty, 12.4% are age75-plus, 20% are age 75-plus and living alone, 21.4% are women age 75-plus living alone, and 23.4% are age 65-plus and are minority. Furthermore, as people age he or she will experience the changes in health care cost as they increase if a person has a chronic health condition and most are upset because he or she will see an increase in cost by insurance covering gaps in Medicare, and there has been an increase with out-of-pocket expenditures for those uninsured that is normally those whom are poor and those with chronic health problems (Demographic Changes in New York State). Additionally, the elderly living in New York face the increasing cost for home fuel, maintenance, electrical, and any day-to-day expenses. Housing costs make up for about one-third of the income of 54% of those elderly who rent and 27% of elderly homeowners and women spend less time in the workforce than that of men, so this means women will experience lower pay rates, lower personal earnings, and a lower retirement income. Furthermore, women tend to live longer than men, so this relates to women living alone and more liking in need of long-term care services, and Medicare, or Medicaid. In the United States chronic health conditions are a major cause of illness, disability, and death with an expected cost of $864 billion by 2040 just with chronic conditions and with the cost for the elderly more, and disabling, and difficult to treat. It has also been said that the elderly age 60 years and older who claim his or her health condition is very good or excellent has lowered since 1994 to 2002 mainly among men age 65 to 74 (Demographic Changes in New York State). Furthermore, the challenges people face will always be the cost of health care because everyone needs health care coverage people experiencing illnesses will never go away, but if a program is established that can offer health care coverage to all including the elderly and the cost not be out of reach not just for those individuals, but for the facilities. If people could receive health care coverage than there would not be a large number of unpaid treatments and procedures, but as this continues so will the rise in cost for medical.

References

Demographic Changes in New York State. (N.D) Retrieved from http://www.aging.ny.gov/NYSOFA/Demographics/DemographicChangesinNewYorkState.pdf Jacobzone, S (2000) Coping with aging: international challenges. Retrieved from

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/19/3/213.short

Rood-Wilson, C (2010) AGING MICHIGANDERS: DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES AND CUMULATIVE INEQUALITY. Michigan State University. Retrieved from EBSCOHOST