Maybe it’s the health-care house that’s burning, not the pension house

This one’s making the rounds tonight:

“Governments in large developed economies will face ‘ballooning’ debt levels and rating downgrades if they don’t act quickly to limit the impact on their budgets of rising healthcare costs, Standard & Poor’s Corp. warned Tuesday.

“…while a number of governments are taking action [on] rising pension costs, few have attempted to reform healthcare provision to achieve the same goal.

“S&P said that without any change in policy, it would start to cuts its ratings of developed-country governments from 2015, moves that would affect ‘a number of highly rated sovereigns.’…

“‘Healthcare spending represents the majority of the total increase in age-related spending in more than half of the G-20 advanced economies,’ it said.

“That group includes France, the U.K., the U.S., Japan, Canada and Italy…”

You should read the whole story. Some of it is less discouraging.