Pareto is alive and well … and haunting the U.S. healthcare system.

According to the National Health Care Management Association analysis of 2008 healthcare spending:

The top 1 percent of the population was responsible for 20.2 percent of spending.
The top 5 percent of the population accounted for almost half (47.5 percent) of all health care spending.
ABout 60% of the top 5 percent (and top 1 percent) are 55 and older; about 40% is 65 and over
The top 10 percent of the population accounted for 63.6 percent of all spending.
15.6 percent of the civilian, non-institutionalized population had no health care spending at all in 2008
The half of the population with the lowest spending accounted for only 3.1 percent of all expenditures.

This entry was posted on July 15, 2011 at 6:24 am and is filed under Health Care / Medical Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Robert Wong Says:
July 15, 2011 at 11:24 am | Reply
I saw a similarly interesting study on Frontline regarding the costs expended at the end of life of older people. Basically it said that even though most people expressed wishes to spend their last days at home, most are in the ICU and heroic efforts are expended where the outcome is almost certain. I believe they said a significant posrtion of a person’s lifetime healthcare spend occurs in their final days… http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/facing-death/
Consultant Ninja Says:
July 17, 2011 at 12:47 am | Reply
saw the same trend about 3 years back

http://www.consultantninja.com/2008/06/consumer-driven-health-care-wont-stop.html

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