"The public is telling us the No. 1 domestic issue is health," said Dr. Richard Carmona, former U.S. surgeon general and now chairman of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, in a news conference in Washington on Tuesday releasing the report. "The disease burden is mounting, the economic burden is mounting and the trajectory we're on is unsustainable."
"More than half of Americans suffer from chronic disease. Every year, millions of people are diagnosed, and every year millions die of these diseases," said Ross DeVol, the Milken Institute's director of health and regional economics and principal author of the report.
Treatment for those diseases, based on 2003 data, cost $277 billion. But lost productivity cost far more: $1.1 trillion.
Lifestyle changes could have a major impact on our country's price tag for chronic disease, the report said.
Curbing obesity alone by close to 15 million cases could translate to a savings of $60 billion by 2023 and improve the country's productivity by $254 billion, the report said. Other changes include lowering smoking rates and increasing early detection and disease-management efforts.
Chronic costs - The direct and indirect costs of the seven most common chronic conditions in the United States, as identified in a new report by Milken Institute researchers:
| Disease | Reported cases* | Treatment cost | Value of lost productivity | Total economic expense |
| Cancer | 10.6 million | $48.1 billion | $271.2 billion | $319.3 billion |
| Hypertension | 36.8 million | 32.5 billion | 279.5 billion | 312 billion |
| Mental disorders | 30.3 million | 45.8 billion | 170.9 billion | 216.7 billion |
| Heart disease | 19.1 million | 64.7 billion | 104.6 billion | 169.3 billion |
| Pulmonary conditions | 49.2 million | 45.2 billion | 93.7 billion | 138.9 billion |
| Diabetes | 13.7 million | 27.1 billion | 104.7 billion | 131.8 billion |
| Stroke | 2.4 million | 13.6 billion | 22.1 billion | 35.7 billion |
* Numbers exclude people in institutions such as nursing homes and prisons.
Source: The Milken Institute's "Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease" relied on data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (2003), U.S. Census Bureau, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and the National Health Interview Survey.
Unhealthy numbers
Key points from the Milken Institute's report, "Unhealthy America":
-- More than 109 million Americans have one or more common chronic condition, for a total of 162 million cases.
-- In 2003, productivity losses associated with chronic disease reached almost $1.1 trillion, and treatment cost $277 billion.
-- California is home to more than 16.3 million cases of chronic disease, for a total cost of $133 billion.
Online resources
To view the complete report: www.milkeninstitute.org (Source)
To see an interactive Web site with national and state-level detail: www.chronicdiseaseimpact.com
Read full from: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/03/BUDKSGJLP.DTL