It is surprising that, despite different health care systems in U.S.A. and Germany, reductions in age-dependent health care spending are similar. "The cost for treating patients 90 years and older in both German regions is somewhat half of that of treating 65 to 69 year-olds," Brockmann explains. These differences can only be partially explained by age-specific disease patterns.
Health expenses for women aged 20 to 60 are usually due to breast cancer or other tumours, whereas older women suffer more from cardio-vascular diseases. Men's cancer rates increase after the age of 65. Older men and women usually die from cardio-vascular or respiratory diseases.
Using the ICD-classification (International Classification of Diseases), a widely accepted norm in health care, it is most interesting to compare cost of illness with the therapy costs according to age. "Here we can see that significantly less is being spent on patients 80 and older who have the same ICD-classification," says Brockmann. The cost of hospitalisation were 50 percent lower than those of clinic residents who had either not reached the legal retireme
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Contact: Dr. Hilke Brockmann
Brockmann@demogr.mpg.de
49-381-208-1161
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
11-Nov-2002