Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 4, 1992 TAG: 9201040174
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
`BABY BOOM' MAY BUST MEDICAL SYSTEM
The aging of the 80 million Americans born during the post-World War II baby boom could prompt a health-care crisis that will dwarf current problems in the nation's medical system, a private research organization warned in a study issued Friday.As the number of people 65 and older more than doubles over the next four decades, from 30 million to 65 million, problems of spiraling costs and insufficient resources are also likely to set off an unprecedented competition for resources, the authors said.
The younger population will be made up increasingly of minorities and immigrants, many with serious health-care and social-service needs of their own.
"We are certainly on the threshold, looking at a health-care crisis," said Carol J. De Vita, senior research demographer at the Population Reference Bureau and co-author of the report.
The aging of the massive baby boom - made up of the generation born between 1946 and 1964 - also will usher in an era of change in policies affecting age discrimination, retraining, retirement and Social Security, the report said.
"When the history of our time is written a century hence, it may well be said that the baby boom was one of the most powerful and enduring demographic influences on this nation," said "The Baby Boom - Entering Midlife," issued by the Washington-based bureau.
The report emphasized that the experiences of the elderly baby boomers will vary by age, race and gender, just as their pasts have.
The "trailing edge" baby boomers, born after 1954, are less likely than their older counterparts to be married, to vote or to have matched their parents' economic standing, for example.
Just as the first half of the baby boom set the stage for its successors - abandoning traditional gender roles, living together before marriage and delaying childbearing - that "leading edge" will once more push into the frontier of old age.
And just as the first baby boomers enjoyed a relatively uncrowded labor market as they grew up, they will have first access to nursing homes and other services that may be in short supply when the younger boomers hit old age.
"The leading edge is going to bring the questions into the public debate, but the trailing edge . . . may have to live with the consequences of those policy decisions," said De Vita.
A shortage of nursing-home beds will be complicated by too few physicians trained in gerontology and an explosion in health-care costs. A study by the Alliance for Aging Research has reported that Medicare costs will increase sixfold by the year 2040.
"When you look at that and the demands that will put on the health care system, you are looking at a tremendous national problem," said Paul DelPonte, a spokesman for the Alliance for Aging Research.