The Meaning of Headlines: 'big-ticket'

The Meaning of Headlines: 'big-ticket' - business

In the Business Personal Finances section of The Irish Independent appears an article published on 10 July 2016 with the headline: The big-ticket health bills facing Irish men. What does ‘big-ticket’ mean?

The Oxford Dictionaries defines a ticket as a piece of paper that gives people the right to ‘enter a place, travel by public transport, or participate in an event.’ It’s a ‘pass’ or a admissions docket. It can also be a list – for example, ‘she is on the ticket in the next election.’ Ticket is a noun.

Oxford Dictionaries defines ‘big-ticket’ as adjective – a descriptive word – that means ‘constituting a major expense.’ A big-ticket item describes the expensive item, usually a car, house, or expensive vacation. Therefore a big-ticket health bill would be an expensive health bill.

The article first states that ‘Irish men are facing bills running into the tens of thousands of euro’ for common health problems, describing the costs as ‘more than the average industrial wage.’ The article says that, without health insurance, the cost of serious illnesses are expensive. Examples provided include: bad heart (euro 40,000), prostrate cancer (20,000), cancer (14,000 plus), life-saving cancer tests (1,000), and depression – 28 days in a clinic (18,000). It provides information on the number of Irish men facing each situation. For example, ‘men are more likely to die from cancer than women, including lung cancer and colorectal cancer.’

The Scorecard for The Irish Independent headline is 90%. The article does mention expensive health-related costs for some examples of common health conditions, althought it does not include the word ‘big-ticket’ in the article. It is also a (brief) list of conditions. And the costs mentioned are equivalent to a car or an expensive vacation, but probably not a house. However, it does give a quick look at expensive health bills that may occur in a lifetime.

http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/the-bigticket-health-bills-facing-irish-men-34869774.html

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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