The latest available data showed health expenditures were $8086 per person in the United States or 17.6 %. of gross domestic product (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website, April 1, 2012). Use $8086 as the population mean and suppose a survey research firm will take a sample of 100 people to investigate the nature of their health expenditures.  Assume the population standard deviation is $2500. a. Show the sampling distribution of the mean amount of health care expenditures for a sample of 100 people. b. What is the probability the sample mean will be within $200 of the population mean? c. What is the probability the sample mean will be greater than $9000? If the survey research firm reports a sample mean greater than $9000, would you question whether the firm followed correct sampling procedures? Why or Why not?

Definition Definition Measure of central tendency that is the average of a given data set. The mean value is evaluated as the quotient of the sum of all observations by the sample size. The mean, in contrast to a median, is affected by extreme values. Very large or very small values can distract the mean from the center of the data. Arithmetic mean: The most common type of mean is the arithmetic mean. It is evaluated using the formula: μ = 1 N ∑ i = 1 N x i Other types of means are the geometric mean, logarithmic mean, and harmonic mean. Geometric mean: The nth root of the product of n observations from a data set is defined as the geometric mean of the set: G = x 1 x 2 ... x n n Logarithmic mean: The difference of the natural logarithms of the two numbers, divided by the difference between the numbers is the logarithmic mean of the two numbers. The logarithmic mean is used particularly in heat transfer and mass transfer. ln x 2 − ln x 1 x 2 − x 1 Harmonic mean: The inverse of the arithmetic mean of the inverses of all the numbers in a data set is the harmonic mean of the data. 1 1 x 1 + 1 x 2 + ...