- 5% of the US population accounts for 49.5% of all health care expenditures.
- The top 5 percent of health care users spend, on average, more than 17 times as much per person as those in the bottom 50 percent of users.
- The 15 most expensive health conditions account for 44 percent of total health care expenses.
- Annual costs for the elderly (age 65 and older) are approximately four to five times those of people in their early teens.
- The elderly (age 65 and over) made up around 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2002, but they consumed 36 percent of total U.S. personal health care expenses.
50% of the US population accounts for just 2.7% of all health care expenditures
Sources: Kaiser Family Foundation, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
