There was an article in the Boston Globe today that was written by Ranch Kimball, the president and chief executive of Boston-based Joslin Diabetes Center, about the chronic cost of chronic diseases. Ranch describes the overwhelming costs that diabetes has on our health care system as well as how greatly it affects this state."More than 6 percent of Massachusetts residents had diabetes in 2005"
"Three in five people with diabetes have at least one complication"
"one in three has two complications"
"one in 13 has five complications, which can range from heart attack and stroke to blindness and kidney failure."
"Fifty percent of people with Type 2 diabetes have complications by the time they are diagnosed with the disease."
"Diabetes costs the United States at least $132 billion a year - or one of every 10 healthcare dollars."
"Reducing chronic disease must be our next collective priority."
I hope this serves as a wake-up call for the general masses all the way up to the political candidates.
3 comments:
albert, maybe you'd like to highlight diabetes 365. it's a flickr group in which we post a picture a day about something diabetes-related. it's awesome. i'm posting there and so are various notable d-bloggers.
dae, i've definitely been checkin out everyone's diabetes 365 pictures. They've been helping me visualize what diabetes is all about.
Albert,
Last year my health insurance cost me $20,000. I have diabetes and heart disease. I'm beginning to feel that I'm being discriminated. Discrimination is defined as treating someone less favorably because of their possession of an attribute. I have a good friend who’s a lawyer. I’ll have to ask him if he wants to start a class action suit. Insurance companies have always treated many of their clients less favorably because of their possession of an attribute.
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