The challenge of a rapidly aging population – and how chiropractic can help.

The challenge of a rapidly aging population – and how chiropractic can help.

What’s the biggest challenge facing our society? You may think that it’s political divisions, our economy, or even the impact of climate change. However, believe it or not, the most pressing issue that we face now as a nation is…aging.

That may sound a little ridiculous at first glance. After all, don’t we want to live long lives and age gracefully? While that may be true, the demographic shift of a rapidly aging population in the United States – and several other industrialized nations around the world – is just starting to have some significant consequences, from the economy to housing, our national budget to health care, and just about everything in between.

Of course, an aging population brings a huge new medical care burden, and chiropractic care is on the front lines of improving the health of seniors with safe, natural, and risk-adverse treatment.

Today, we’ll cover some of the illuminating facts about our aging population and, in part two of this blog, I’ll talk more specifically how chiropractic care can serve seniors.

After the United States was victorious in World War II, millions of young troops came home, wasting no time getting married, moving to the suburbs, and starting families. The children on this post-war boom – called the Baby Boomers – were born between 1945 and 1964. In all, there were an astounding 76 million children born during that period.

Currently, Baby Boomers make up 22.9% of our U.S. population, which is a larger demographic than any other group save for Millennials (24.5% of the population).

Now, led by the Baby Boomer generation, the number of Americans entering their senior years is skyrocketing.

The population of seniors and older Americans is growing seven times faster than the rest of the population.

It’s a demographic shift that will change the fundamental makeup of our society, government, and economy over the coming five, ten, and twenty years.

In fact, every day right now, 7,800 Baby Boomers turn 65 years old. But, by 2022, there will be 11,800 Baby Boomers turning 65 years old every single day in the U.S.! That rate will keep rising until around 2030.

By the year 2030, about 20% of the entire U.S. population will be 65 years or older. That means one in five Americans will be senior or retirement age!

Not only are the Baby Boomers pushing a new swell of a senior population in America, but the generation previous is living to longer on average than ever before. Roughly 30 million Americans are 70 years or older, which is another 9.3% of the U.S. population.

Between ‘Boomers and the generation now over 70, that adds up to 106 million Americans who are 52 years old or older. That’s 35% of our total population– way more than one out of every three Americans!

In fact, this demographic trend of rapidly aging societies extends far past the U.S., with most major industrialized nations experiencing the same shift, due to advancements in healthcare, science, fewer wars, and fatal diseases, etc.

(In some countries, like Germany, Japan, and others, the aging population is compounded by a negative birth rate. In Japan, for example, they actually sell more adult diapers than baby diapers! Wow!)

Like no other generation before or since, the Baby Boomers “paid into” our society at an impressive rate, with taxes, wages, creating jobs, and social security contributions.

However, once they turn 65 (or 62!), these seniors and Baby Boomers will start withdrawing from those social safety nets instead of paying into them. Not only will we lose a huge demographic of people paying into the system, but they’ll start accessing their Social Security, pensions, Medicare and Medicaid.

Let’s take just one segment of our society that’s deeply impacted by our aging population – Medicare – and take a closer look.

From 2000 until 2030, the size of Medicare beneficiaries in the U.S. will at least double, from 40 million to roughly 80 million or more.

And by 2050, Medicare enrollees are projected to reach an astounding 92.8 million!

Up until 2024, Medicare is expected to grow by approximately 7.2% per year.

While Medicare assists a huge number of seniors, it doesn’t come close to covering their total medical bills and healthcare costs. In fact, 20% of total senior monthly income is spent out-of-pocket on healthcare and medications on top of what Medicare provides.

The average senior is now paying $4,600 out-of-pocket each year for healthcare above and beyond Medicare, which comes to $38,688 spent per senior over the last five years.

Medicare currently makes up roughly 23% of our total U.S. personal health care budget and 14% of our entire federal budget!

Even so, the cost of Medicare is expected to increase from $650 billion in 2012 to more than $1 trillion by 2022.

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As you can glean from reading these facts about our aging population, chiropractic is a necessary and important alternative option for older Americans.