Chronic cost of diabetes: effectively treating this epidemic could mean big savings for states and healthier patients.

• Author: Mason, Katherine
• Position: HEALTH

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Diabetes is killing us.

More and more Americans suffer from it, and estimates are that the 26 million people with the disease will cost the nation more than $200 billion this year.

Expanded health programs aimed at tipping the scales against obesity, pre-diabetes and diabetes could help prevent many new cases, help those suffering from it, and save state governments millions.

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Michigan Representative Stacy Erwin Oakes (D) knows about diabetes all too well. She was recently diagnosed as having prediabetes while being screened for what she thought was a pregnancy. Young and seemingly healthy, Oakes is a 5-foot-9-inch former basketball player. She has never struggled with weight or health issues until recently, and believes you'd never know her condition just by looking at her.

"It doesn't look the same for every person," Oakes says.

Cost Driver

Diabetes accounts for more than 10 percent of all U.S. health care spending--a troubling omen for our health care economy. The medical bills of people with diabetes often are 2.3 times higher than those who do not have the condition. Nearly 1-in-5 hospitalizations in 2008 was related to diabetes, totaling more than 7.7 million hospital stays and $83 billion in hospital costs.

The disease was the seventh leading cause of death in the United States in 2007, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC notes that a person with diabetes also has a shorter life expectancy than someone of similar age without the disease, often because of complications that may include cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, blindness and lower limb amputations.

The steady increase in the number of cases is troubling. If current trends continue, by 2050, the CDC estimates that as many as 1-in-3 U.S. adults could have diabetes. State budgets will feel the effect. The estimated 10-year cost just to state budgets for Medicaid clients with diabetes or pre-diabetes is a whopping $111 billion.

"Ultimately, whether states or the federal government are addressing the issue, we are facing cost and revenue issues that must be shared," says Oakes. "In conjunction with the states and insurance companies, we also need to make sure people are getting tested."

People with diabetes are more susceptible to all kinds of other diseases and maladies, and once a diabetic, always a diabetic. There is no cure. However...