Research Questions

1. Health care spending per capita increased an average of 10% annually from 1960 to 2003. Per person spending in 1960 was $126, and in 2003 it was $4,886. This information was obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, however, spending in 2005 was $2,664 per "consumer unit." More research is needed to understand this discrepancy.

2. Americans spent $1.98 trillion on health care in 2005, according to U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Americans spent 15% of the US GDP on health care in 2004. Switzerland, the next highest-spending country for which data was available, spent 11.6% of it's GPD on health care in that year. Data for Japan was not available for 2004, but in 2003 they spent 8% of their GDP on health care and enjoyed a greater life expectency for both males and females than the United States. Sources were the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and U.S. National Center for Health Statistics

3. What are the five greatest health care threats to US?
I'm not sure how to tackle this question. Do you mean threats as causes of death? Factors or behaviors contributing to poor health? Or threats to receiving competent, affordable health care?

The five leading causes of death in 2005, according to the Center for Disease Control, were heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic lower respiratory disease, and accidents (in order from greatest to least). To find out the underlying causes that increase the risk of these deaths, however, more research would be needed, either in contacting the CDC or doing more database research.

4. In 2004 the life expectancy at birth for a U.S. citizen was 77.8 years. Broken down by gender, it was 75.2 years for men and 80.4 for women. This is within the average of other developed nations, with Japan leading by over five years for females and three years for males. The lowest expectancy in the given data was Turkey, with women born in 2004 averaging 73.6 years and men 68.8 years. The sources for this information were the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.

5. At CU the cost of health care is $850 per semester. At West Virginia University annual coverage was $780, and at the University of Hawaii, annual coverage was $1,607. This information was collected directly from the universities' respective websites. I was unable to find a comparison of health plan costs for different colleges, but I could ask a librarian for help locating the information, or try to find government statistics available online or in the library.