Projecting future health care expenditure at European level: drivers, methodology and main results.

Summary for non-specialistsTo correctly assess the demography-related risks facing public finances in the EU over the next couple of decades and establish adequate policy responses to the demographic, social and economic developments, it is essential to devise a reliable method to estimate future health care expenditure. To tackle this issue, the European Commission and the Economic Policy Committee projected future public health care expenditure in all EU Member States over the period 2007-2060. A unique internationally comparable database has been established and a model built allowing to project health care spending in a common, coherent framework of macroeconomic variables. The model incorporates the most recent developments in demography and epidemiology and draws on new insights from health economics, allowing the comparison of the challenges facing both individual countries' health care systems and European society in its entirety.