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Show Our Increased Spending for Health WHAT AMERICANS SPEND FOR HEALTH CARc C By Age and Sex ) Expenditures Per Person (Dollars) Age and Sex Per Cent 1952-53 1957-58 Increase All Persons 66 94 42.4 Under 5 28 43 71.4 6-17 38 " : 49 28.9 13-34 70 93 40.0 35-14 80 1C3 35.0 55-64 96 129 34.4 65 and over 102 177 73.5 . Males 51 ,77 51.0 Females 80 111 33.8 Source' Hsalth Information Foundation The amount of money a person spends on health care physicians, hospitals, drugs, dentists, and other goods and services varies erreatlv according to age and sex, Health Information Foundation points c out. In a study made by the Foundation Foun-dation in cooperation with the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago, a representative cross-section cross-section of American families were interviewed at length about the kinds of services they used in a 12-month period during dur-ing 1957-58 and how they paid for these services. Average expenditures rose steadily by age, H.I.F. found from $48 a person in the under-6 under-6 age group to $177 for each person 65 or older. For the studied population as a whole, the average was $95 a person. Females, the Foundation con-tinued(spent con-tinued(spent an average of $111 apiece on health care during the 12-month period substantially substan-tially higher thanathe $77 average aver-age for males. Comparing the 1957-58 fig- "-''h finse of a similar study done five years earlier, the Foundation pointed out that increased spending was the rule for all age groups. The greatest increases, however, were among the youngest and oldest groups. Per capita spending for children under 6 rose by 71.4 per cent, while the average for those 65 and older went up 73.5 per cent. The increase for all ages combined was 42.4 per cent. George Bugbee, Foundation President, commented that increased in-creased spending at the extremes ex-tremes of the age scale are "particularly gratifying at the younger ages because early treatment is likely to ward off more serious trouble in later life, at the older ages because there has been so much discussion discus-sion recently as to whether people peo-ple 65 and over adequately utilize uti-lize available services." |