Social health insurance: The major driver of unsustainable fiscal policy?

During the next decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older as a result of the low level of birth rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. We show within a Generational Accounting framework how unsustainable the public finances of France, Germany, Switzerland and the U.S. are, given their demographic developments. Thereby, our focus lies on social health insurance systems which are in addition affected by the medical-technical progress. Due to the cost-increasing effect of the medical-technical progress one can justifiably say that social health insurance schemes are the major drivers behind unsustainable fiscal policies.