One of the key components to making sure that there’s enough money and health care available for all of us living in the United States is plan, plan, plan. If experts were just to estimate what the population will be in a particular year (and much of it has to be some speculation) or if age and gender breakdown weren’t taken into consideration, health care providers would find themselves with a huge demographic portion needing care and with no money available to serve them with. Luckily for all of us, the National Health Care Expenditure Accounts Projections Team (NHCEAPT) is all over this type of things, and they have identified a trend that all of us, from young to old, should be aware of. Here is what we can expect to see through the year 2017 (doesn’t that year just sound so scifi?) and some suggestions on how we can be prepared for it.

Get Ready Medicare: Here Come the Baby Boomers

Baby boomers are little kids rocking out and bopping around to some music on the stereo. A “baby boomer,” a term created by the U.S. Census Bureau, is used to describe anyone born right after World War II, when everyone was so happy to see one another return home safely that all they did was sit around and make babies. The decade is usually considered between the years of 1945-1955. My parents? Proud baby boomers. And soon enough, people like my folks are going to be needing to access public programs like Medicare. According to the folks with the NHCEAPT, the outlook for national spending in the next eight years calls for steady growth. Spending growth is projected to be 6.7 percent in 2007, similar to its rate in 2006. Average annual growth over the projection period is expected to be 6.7 percent.

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