Re: more on medical

I'm guessing that that $10,000 number includes a lot of things we don't normally think of when we think about health-care costs--such as medicaid and various disability related programs. Many of these people are "sick" by definition and quite costly to maintain [nursing homes, dialysis units, and similar]. If you take all those costs, add all public and private health insurance premiums and co-payments and institutional stuff [like Indian, VA, and military hospitals, and farmworker clinics], and the uninsured prescription costs, and divide that total by however many of us there are, I'd be surprised it's only $10 grand.


On Friday, February 6, 2004, at 12:09 PM, Bonnie Holmes wrote:

A lot on health and medical costs recently in the news...wonder why
women are eating so much more...one thing mentioned in the article was
sodas...maybe we drank more black coffee and tea earlier.

From 1971 to 2000, the study found, women increased their caloric intake
by 22 percent, men by 7 percent...The study, conducted by the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention and reported in the current edition
of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found that in 1971 women
ate 1,542 calories on average, compared with today's 1,877, while men
went from 2,450 calories a day to 2,618. Those numbers dwarf the
government's recommendations of 1,600 calories a day for women and 2,200
for men.

This from a CBS Financial newsletter: "Health-care costs for the average
family are set to top $10,000 next year, Thorpe said, with households
paying an increasing share. Meanwhile, the number of uninsured has edged
up, to 43.6 million in 2002". I can't image the average cost being this
high. We had unusual costs last year with my husband being in the
hospital for three weeks and needing all sorts of tests but I am hoping
that we don't top $1,000 this year.


Bonnie Zone 6+ ETN

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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
Zone 10

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