A scenario for health care expenditure 2008-2011

In the scenario, total expenditures for health care and long-term care will grow during the period 2008-2011 on average by 5.5% per annum. 2.8%-point of this growth is determined by volume growth, such as population growth and ageing (0.9%-point), and other volume growth, such as technological progress, higher quality in medical care and more demand due to a wealthier population (1.9%-point). 2.7%-point of health-care expenditure growth is due to increasing prices in health care, which increase 1.2%-point faster than general inflation in the economy. Since labour productivity in health care grows less faster than labour productivity economy wide, health-care inflation rises 0.8%-point more than general inflation (the Baumol effect). The other 0.4% point is due to the fact that prices of pharmaceuticals and new technological products often grow faster than general inflation.

This publication is in Dutch.