“A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation takes a detailed look at per person Medicare spending by age and by service among the nearly 30 million people covered by traditional Medicare in 2011. This analysis examines the relationship between Medicare per person spending and advancing age, providing new data to inform ongoing federal budget discussions and efforts to improve care for an aging population. Medicare beneficiaries age 80 and older account for a disproportionate share of Medicare spending and are expected to triple as a share of the 65+ population by 2050.  Key findings from the report, The Rising Cost of Living Longer:  Analysis of Medicare Spending by Age for Beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare, include:

• Medicare per capita spending for seniors rises with age, as expected, but does not peak until age 96— more than doubling between the ages of 70 and 96, from $7,566 to $16,145 — before declining for the small number of beneficiaries living into their late 90s and beyond.”