Healthcare Forecasting: baby boomers generation

The rising healthcare costs in the United States includes a variety of indicators including the aging population, poor healthcare habits, and other public health factors.  The forecasting of these costs gets complicated because there are many unstable factors that contribute to healthcare.
For example, with the baby boomers are reaching the age of retirement and as people age, more health concerns arise.  The highest healthcare costs occur during the last few years of a person's life with end-of-life care.  The forecasting of the aging population is more concrete given census reports.  However, with the healthcare habits such as healthy eating to prevent obesity is an individual's choice.
The impact these baby boomers have from a supply chain management perspective include the number of doctors needed in the future, with a specialty in geriatrics or common chronic conditions are essential  in addition to the need of hospital beds, medical centers, and medical supplies need to meet the demand.
The current concern of supply needed in the future of healthcare is the supply of doctors.  With admission rates being extremely low for medical school, there are less doctors practicing and if the rates admissions and interest in the field remains the same, the demand for physicians will exceed the supply as the aging population seeking healthcare services in the future.  This future problem must be addressed through healthcare policy and the change in the supply of physicians.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w14361.pdf?new_window=1