Older people absorb more healthcare resources. The OECD has shown for its member states that per capita health expenditures for the over-65s are 2.5 - 5 times higher than for the under-65s, and higher still for the over 75s. In 2001-2002 in the UK the over-65 age group represented 16% of the population but used up 39% of the healthcare bud get: the over-85s were especially costly, consuming £3313 of healthcare resources, as opposed to a national average of £646 .In the US older consumers spent on average US$3493 of their own money on healthcare, as opposed to US$2182 for the population as a whole: they had four times the number of in patient days and spent an average of 6.4 days per hospital episode (the figure for the whole population being only 4.6 days). It takes more mechanics to keep an old car on the road.