{"id":2239,"date":"2011-09-28T18:28:34","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T22:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=2239"},"modified":"2011-09-29T14:23:16","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T18:23:16","slug":"new-hampshires-silver-tsunami-a-sea-change-in-healthcare-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2011\/09\/28\/new-hampshires-silver-tsunami-a-sea-change-in-healthcare-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"New Hampshire’s “Silver Tsunami” : A Sea Change in Healthcare Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Frank O'Dwyer<\/p>

New Hampshire has one of the highest percentages of baby boomers in the US<\/p><\/div>\n

New Hampshire has a higher\u00a0percentage of baby boomers on average than most of the nation: 30 percent.<\/p>\n

“Relative to the rest of the country we have a larger proportion of that 45-65 age group.” says Steve Norton, Director of New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies. The Center\u00a0released a report<\/a> today looking\u00a0at what will happen to healthcare costs in New Hampshire once all those boomers age into retirement.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0study\u00a0found that by 2020\u00a0–the not so distant future–the state’s health care\u00a0needs will be greater, and\u00a0costlier, than they are today as boomers age.<\/p>\n

Right now, New Hampshire ranks second-highest in the nation for the percentage of residents who have private\u00a0health insurance\u00a0through their employer. But says Norton as New Hampshire’s large boomer population ages into retirement, they will shift from private health insurance into Medicare.\u00a0 That could be a major financial hit for some of the state’s\u00a0hospitals as many patients quickly shift from higher-paying private insurance to lower-paying Medicare.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got a lot of people aged 40-60 that are employed in very good jobs,” Norton says.\u00a0 “And\u00a0all those people are ultimately going\u00a0to become eligible for Medicare shifting a huge portion of the population our of private insurance into publicly funded insurance.”<\/p>\n

There’s also the question of the growing number of boomers who will eventually age into Medicaid, which pays for nursing homes and healthcare for the disabled. Medicaid is funded by both the state and the federal government. As boomers age, the state’s Medicaid costs will rise dramatically, says Norton.<\/p>\n

“The aging process has the potential of breaking the bank of the state budget and its management of the Medicaid program,” he says. “[Grappling] with how we manage the older populations within the Medicaid program is going to be very important from a financial stability perspective.”<\/p>\n

But there’s still time before the tsunami hits. Norton says it’s important for the state to plan for these major changes which are happening slowly, but happening none the less.<\/p>\n

“We’re 10 years away from it right now.\u00a0 We’re in our economic prime right now, and now is time we should be thinking about, it not 10 years from now when we’re in it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Hampshire has a higher\u00a0percentage of baby boomers on average than most of the nation: 30 percent. “Relative to the rest of the country we have a larger proportion of that 45-65 age group.” says Steve Norton, Director of New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies. The Center\u00a0released a report today looking\u00a0at what will happen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[536,28,529,134],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2247,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions\/2247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}