Hi Jeff,
This might be a little late ... :).
From what I gather you helthins carries a SORTKEY field, (I know helthins_view does, but you do not explain how the table is generated, so I assume it inherits the SORTKEY field from HELTHINS), so you could (if I am not mistaken) do the the whole thing with 1 SQL statement:
>UPDATE helthins
>SET user_comment =
>(SELECT suffix FROM helth_suffix_codes
>WHERE dedtype IN (SELECT dedtype
>FROM helth_currents
>WHERE ssno = helthins.ssno
* and here's my contribution ...
and sortkey= helthins.sortkey ))
HTH,
Marc
If things have the tendency to go your way, do not worry. It won't last. Jules Renard.