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| Did You Know? |
19% of Working-Age Americans don’t
have health insurance3
Asthma Costs the health care system more than $16 billion
annually4
Giving Up Smoking could reduce individual health care
costs by $960 per year5
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Take Our Quiz |
95 percent of health care dollars in the U.S. are spent on treating diseases.6
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How much is spent annually in the U.S. treating all forms of cardiovascular disease?7
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For every dollar spent on health care services
in the U.S., patients pay an average of how much
out of their pockets?8
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| 1 |
“Short-Term Energy Outlook,” Energy Information Administration,
Aug. 12, 2008 |
| 2 |
“The Milliman Medical
Index 2007,” Milliman Inc., May, 2007 |
| 3 |
“Early Release of
Health Insurance Estimates Based on Data from
the 2006 National Health Interview Survey,”
Centers for Disease Control, National Center for
Health Statistics, June, 2007 |
| 4 |
“Morbidity and Mortality:
2004 Chartbook on Cardiovascular, Lung and Blood
Diseases,” National Institutes of Health,
National Heart Lung and Blood Institute |
| 5 |
Schweha, J.J. “Occupational
Medicine Forum: Good Health is Good Business.”
Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
48 (May 2006) |
| 6 |
“Priorities for America’s
Health: Capitalizing on Life-Saving, Cost-Effective
Preventive Services,” Partnership for Prevention,
“American Journal of Preventive Medicine,”
July, 2006 |
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| The Real Cost of Health Care |
| We all know the cost of a gallon
of gas (and feel the pain at the pump). But the
cost of health care isn’t as obvious as
the price of gasoline. This issue of Driver’s
Seat covers the real cost of health care
and ways you can help keep those costs down. |
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The Premium Price |
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Like the price of gasoline
(which has increased 30 percent in price-per-gallon
over this time last year1),
the increasing cost of health care receives frequent news
coverage as well. But do you know
exactly where your dollars are being spent? |
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The 2007 Distribution of Health
Care Costs by Category2 |
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| The
Cost Of A Fill Up |
| 65%
of Americans are overweight or obese9 |
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More
than 80% of people with Type 2 diabetes
are overweight10 |
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The
total direct medical costs of diabetes in
the
U.S. is $92 billion11 |
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| Fuel
For Thought |
| One
way people have been coping with the high
price of gas is to downsize – for
example, from an SUV to a compact car. You
can do the same to help save money on your
health care costs – thinking smaller
and knowing the real amount of food you’re
eating might help you lower your food intake.
For example: |
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Restaurant servings are
typically two- to four-times larger than
the average person should eat12 |
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Bigger portions of food
lead to eating more – as much as 50
percent more12 |
| • |
One can of regular soda
a day can pile on 15 extra pounds in one
year13 |
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| 8 |
“The Engineering
Economist,” October/December 2006 |
| 9 |
“U.S. Obesity Trends,”
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,
1999-2000 |
| 10 |
“Do You Know the
Health Risks of Being Overweight?”
National Institutes of Health, November, 2004 |
| 11 |
“Cost of Diabetes
in the United States, 2002,” American
Diabetes Association |
| 12 |
“Chefs Don’t
Count Calories, So It’s Up to You,” MSNBC.com,
June, 2007 |
| 13 |
“Intake of Sugar-Sweetened
Beverages and Weight Gain: A Systematic Review,”
American Society for Nutrition, August, 2006 |
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Legal disclosures |
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