The Kansas City Star reported yesterday that chronic diseases are becoming a more prominent topic in discussions on health care reform.
The article quotes the same 75% cost statistic that George Halvorson cites in Health Care Reform Now!:
Long-term chronic ailments such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity and cancer account for 75 percent of U.S. health-care expenditures and seven of 10 deaths. Yet chronic-disease sufferers get only 56 percent of the recommended preventive care they need. And many of their ailments are preventable.
If these patients were treated in a more proactive fashion, experts say, the country could save from $100 billion to $125 billion a year in health-care spending — enough to cover many of the 46 million uninsured.
This approach to health care reform has drawn the support of 2008 Presidential candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties, including Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. John Edwards, former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
SOURCE: "Curbing Chronic Diseases New Issue in Health-Care Politics" 07/26/07
Photo by Adam Ciesielski courtesy of Stock.Xchng
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