Studies of the aged and aging : selected documents, v. 2: Health and health services.

  • United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare.
Date:
1957
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of the aged and aging : selected documents, v. 2: Health and health services. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/244 (page 2)
    various levels of government, but very likely accounts for the largest portion of it. There is no way of determining the value of the sub- stantial amount of free services contributed ty physicians in their private offices and in hospitals. It is thus likely, without attempting an exhaustive documentation, that expenditures on the part of government for all direct personal- health services (exclusive of mental hospitals) came to at least 12 percent of all costs of personal-health services for the segment of the population 65 years of age and over. For the purpose of this conference I am less interested in attempting to account for every fraction of a dollar of charges for personal-health services incurred by those 65 years of age and over than I am in pre- senting a general outline, which can be used for broad planning. It is of great interest to learn, as I said previously, that those 65 years of age and over experience costs 57 percent greater than that for the general population, and also that although they constitute only 9 percent of the population they experience 13 percent of all costs experienced by the total population. As a contrast the segment of the population 5 years of age and under make up 13 percent of the population but account for only 6 percent of the charges for al! per- sonal-health services. Further, for purposes of planning, it is im- portant to know that women 65 and over incur higher costs than men, $77 as against $124. This is true for males and females in the general population, as well. B. AVERAGE COSTS BY TYPE OF SERVICE A convenient and meaningful classification of personal-health services for the consideration of costs and utilization is as follows: Physician Dental Hospital Other Medicines Within physicians’ services it is useful to break such services down into surgical, obstetrical, and other physicians’ services. For the age group under consideration here and for all practical purposes we need not concern ourselves with obstetrical services. Below is presented a simple table showing average costs by type of service for those 65 years of age and over and for the general popu lation. | Annual cost per person Type of service 65 and over General Percent population excess IPN YSICION ~<a 2 a Be ee er ee $36 $25 44 Hospitel¢t oe ke ls aa Be Se A ee eee 25 13 ; 92 Medicines 2 cae scseeee sna ge ee oe ee ee ee ee 22 10 120 BUNUISUiemeisia nc wane es ee cee ene 2 Bene Ao ae eer 10 —60 OPHOIe Cee Aa eee. See Coe ae ee 17 112 Only in dental care is the cost per person to those 65 years of age and over less than for the general population. The cost for surgery was $6 a year. | Next let me present the costs for those who have incurred costs.