NU Online News Service, Oct. 29, 12:36 p.m. – The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality says the typical U.S. resident who had medical expenses in 1996 had only $395 in medical expenses.
Fifteen percent of U.S. residents surveyed had no medical expenses at all in 1996, and half of the 85% of resident who had medical expenses had expenses under $566, the agency says.
But a small number of U.S. residents were so sick and needed so much medicine, inpatient hospital care and other health products and services that they drove up the average medical expenditure to $2,038 per U.S. resident, the agency reports.
