Elder Law FAX The February 12, 2007, issue of Elder Law FAX, a free newsletter published every other Monday by the Elder Law Practice of Timothy L. Takacs. The Good News on Trends in Health and Health Care Use by Older Americans In our last issue of Elder Law FAX, we highlighted a recent report from the U. S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the growth in spending on health care and long-term care in the United States in 2005.   The good news is that spending growth has slowed. The not-so-good news is that spending continues to grow, and at a rate faster than the economy as a whole. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that by 2015, spending on health care and long-term care will rise from 16 percent to 20 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product.   Where will it end? Is it possible that by 2100 one out of every two dollars spent on goods and services in the United States will be spent on health care?   Everyone knows that America's population is aging. Within 20 years, the Census Bureau predicts that one in five Americans will be age 65 or older. Older people get sick and consume a lot of health care. And the more older Americans there are, the sicker the U. S. population will be.  Is this the fate of America in the 21st century? The answer appears to be "no," and the reason appears to be a little known hypothesis that was posed by Dr. James F. Fries in 1980 called "compression of morbidity."   The compression of morbidity hypothesis asserts that the onset of chronic, irreversible illness will be delayed so that the period of infirmity will be compressed into a shorter period of time before death.  By contrast, the expansion of morbidity hypothesis asserts that longer life will be associated with a prolonged period of morbidity and disability.   After 25 years of gathering and analyzing data, researchers now believe that the compression of morbidity hypothesis is correct.   For example, researchers have discovered that nursing home use has been declining since 1985. Percentage of Population over 65 in Nursing Homes 1985 4.2% 2004 3.6% Percentage of Population over 85 in Nursing Homes 1985 21.1% 2004 13.9% Source: Lewin Group, Nursing Home Use by Oldest Old Sharply Declines (November 21, 2006. If the demand for nursing homes continues to decline at just half the rate of the past 20 years, there will be only 320,000 more nursing home residents among the "oldest old" (those 85 and older) instead of 830,000 more.   This is attributed to various factors including better education among the elderly; socioeconomic shifts; changes in chronic disease and related treatments; trends in underlying physical, cognitive and sensory functioning; and environmental changes, particularly the growth in the use of assistive devices. We can expect these trends to continue, in part, because there is a market in the United States for products and services that promote healthy living.   In other words, as people age and live longer, they are not destined merely to live more years in bad health. As a whole, Americans will live healthier lives and for longer into old age. As a result, we are likely to see a continuing slowing of the growth in health care and long-term care spending.   Now, that is good news.