Great chart from the CBO on where the runaway spending will take place in future U.S. federal budgets. It’s mostly all health care due to an aging population.
We sense the next “Big, Big Thing” is going to come in disruptive technologies and strategies to bring health care spending under control. The Washington Post blog wrote this weekend about the growing market for health care services delivered at retail outlets,
Retail clinics have recently boomed in popularity. Visits to these clinics, often set up in shopping malls or drug stores, quadrupled between 2007 and 2009.
We posted a few weeks back about the coming wave of mobile technologies and how they will affect the delivery of health services,
Consider what a trip to the doctor could mean. If you’re feeling ill, Saylor says, you might be able to connect with a doctor in India via your mobile device. He or she could diagnose and treat you for a fraction of the cost of visiting a doctor in the U.S.— maybe only $5 to $10.
Here’s former Apple CEO, John Sculley, talking to Bloomberg’s Tom Keene on Friday,
So little attention has been invested in the disruptive delivery of health services. My focus is on the same things I was recruited for as when I came to Apple.
Steve believed personal computers would be sold like consumer products like Pepsi and Coke. Same opportunities thirty years later with health care. We can bring consumerization, we can make it more convenient, we can make it much less expensive with disruptive pricing, and we can dramatically change the role of the consumer in managing their health and wellness.
No doubt this trend will be met with violent opposition from the vested interests in the medical industry. There’s no choice, however. If the spending trend continues uninterrupted, it will not only be an economic catastrophe but also an immoral and devastating transfer of wealth from the younger generation to the old.
It’s a huge market and gold mine for smart investors and entrepreneurs.
Time for some nonlinear thinking, folks!
(click here if chart is not observable)
Global Macro Monitor 