[I]n the United States, health-care spending per person 65 and over is more than double what it is in Japan, and more than three times what it is in Great Britain. For all this extra spending, U.S. seniors don't enjoy any advantage in health and well-being. Indeed, at age 60, American women can look forward, on average, to 3.8 fewer years of healthy life than their counterparts in Japan, while American men at the same age share nearly the same disadvantage…So the aging global population may actually hurt America the most. Now as I said above, I'm relatively bullish on America, mostly because I believe that the Republican Party will drive the country into the ground over the next decade or so, leading to a progressive revival. In that case, liberals will be able to design a welfare state considerably less intrusive than Europe—after all, we know a lot more now about how to create flexible welfare programs that harness the free market—and the net result will be a social democratic state that still leaves room for dynamic economic growth and innovation. That's the utopian dream, anyway. Now I could be wrong and the GOP could use gerrymandering and the levers of power to stay on top indefinitely. In that case, we better start hording euros and yuan!
This means that America faces a huge comparative disadvantage when it comes to aging. Only 12 percent of the population of the United States is 65 or older, yet the cost of their health care already amounts to 5 percent of GFP. That's far more than we spend on national defense and equal to about one quarter of all federal spending. By contrast, in Great Britain, where nearly 16 percent of the population is 65 or older, the cost of their health care consumes only 2.8 percent of GDP. Going forward, that means that the United Kingdom can "afford" far more seniors than the United States can…