Fact of the Day

The average cost of a family health insurance premium for employer-sponsored coverage more than doubled in the past nine years, going from $5,791 (inflation-adjusted) in 1999 to $12,680 last year.
Source: National Coalition on Health Care

Sales at family clothing stores in the U.S. in August last year totaled $7.6 billion. December was the only month with significantly higher sales.
Source: Census Bureau

During the 2006-2007 school year, 7.3 million students (59 percent of them boys) played high school sports. That total is about 2.1 million higher than the number in 1979-1980.
Source: Census Bureau

The US Open began as a men’s singles and doubles tennis tournament in 1881.
Source: USOpen.org

In 1972 Sen. Edward M. Kennedy pushed the Meals on Wheels Act and the Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program (WIC).
Source: kennedy.senate.gov

Only two U.S. presidents are buried at Arlington National Cemetery: John F. Kennedy and William Howard Taft.
Source: Arlington National Cemetery

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy authored more than 2,500 bills during his 46-year career in the U.S. Senate. Several hundred of them became law.
 
Source: kennedy.senate.gov

Family health insurance premiums increased 130 percent from 1996 to 2006; individual insurance premiums went up 107 percent over the same time period.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

More than 50 percent of births in nine states were financed by Medicaid in 2003.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

Seventy-five percent of AIDS deaths in 2007 occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation