Denand Health Care Case Study

Discuss the basic principles of the Danish health care sector.

Analyze the challenges for the health care sector in the light of the coming year's demographic development – and the social and economic consequences associated with the development?
It should be taken into consideration that the Danish Economic Council in an analysis from 2009 has estimated that 20% of expenditure growth in the future will arise from the expected demographic development and 80% from an expectation of quality and standard improvement in healthcare.
Geoffrey Wallace
Professor Bjarne Hastrup
The Danish Welfare Model
19 December 2014

Danish Healthcare: Changing Principles with Demographics in Flux

The Danish welfare system is one of the most extensive systems
Though 80% of increased costs are due to improvements, 20% is due to demographics. The Danish Economic Council offers up two primary demographic changes they claim to be largely responsible for the rise in non-improvement expenditures: One, ”Cohort effects: The large cohorts born after World War Two will require more health care as they get older,”and two, ”Reduced mortality: Increases in life expectancy will further increase the number of elderly, who requires health care”(317). In The Social Contract Between the Generatins, these are called into question. The Institute of Public Policy Research is quoted as saying, ”The projected increase in the elderly population and the consequences for the NHS have been exaggerated as there is little correlation between ageing and increased health care.”(qtd. In Hastrup 290). In any case, reducing available healthcare for elders is an ethically dubious decision highly unlikely to occur. Instead, recognizing the problem means further steps are necessary to reduce the future costs. There are three options to manage the rising cost of healthcare in Denmark. The Danish Economic Council says, ” If the current line in health care policy is continued, health expenditure will increase at a faster pace than average income. To finance this, either other public expenditure has to decrease, taxes has to increase (i.e. by the proposed
By 2040, this ratio is expected to increase to 38.7%; elder being defined as 65+ and youth as 15-64 (210). The cut-off into elder hood is not an arbitrary one; rather, it is chosen as the age in which one can leave the labor market due to one’s age alone, and become eligible for pension. When faced with a low birthrate and increasing tax burdens on a nation’s youth to fund care for its elders, drawing on a pool of capable workers to increase the laborers in the market is increasingly a very viable option. With average life expectancies for Danish women pushing 80, and men trailing behind at just under 75 years of age, questioning the value of retiring people who are, on average, perfectly capable of working for possibly ten or more years becomes relevant. Mind you, this is an average age of death; where it used to be uncommon to meet a person in their 80s, nonagenarians have become increasingly commonplace, with more than a fair few centenarians floating around. Hastrup says, “According to many gerontologists, the ageing begins around the age of 65… It happens slowly and individually and people hardly notice it until it has already reached an advanced stage. So you do not become unfit for work when you reach the age of 65, even though the effects of age may be beginning to show” (75). Between 1950 and 2005, the number of octogenarians has increased by 508% worldwide; this is not a statistical anomaly (95).