8. Comments on Results
8.1 It is clear from the model results that health expenditures dominate the total costs under all of the scenarios. The assumption of costs increasing faster for older age groups which we have adopted for this model leads to a very steep increase in future health costs and has amplified the importance of health care costs relative to the original model. As noted in the section on assumptions, this approach has been taken in response to the recent experience with utilisation by older age groups. It is, however, very unclear how the pressure that this imposes on the health system will be dealt with in coming years.
8.2 Consequently, and unavoidably, there is a substantial margin of uncertainty associated with these estimates and the results could be quite different under alternative assumption sets which are also reasonable. Furthermore, it is unlikely to ever be possible to measure actual outcomes as expenditure would need to be tracked for every individual within the populations for many years. The estimates presented here should therefore be taken as broadly indicative results rather than precise projections.
SIGNED
Susan Antcliff
Actuary
November 2008
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