US spending on diabetes treatment is massive. Direct expenditure on diabetes treatment in 2005 by the US federal health system represented one in every eight dollars, or $79b out of a total budget of $645b – and this doesn’t include diabetes related spending by other federal agencies on prisoners, war veterans, school lunch programmes and the like. (Numbers are from the National Changing Diabetes Program). Another report suggests that spending upon diabetes drugs alone will grow by at least 60% between 2006 and 2009.
Diabetes is expected to claim the lives of over 62 million Americans in the next 30 years. The forecast for the number of diagnosed diabetics in New Zealand is 145,000 by 2011, up from approximately 80,000 in 1996. (Ministry of Health, Models and Forecasts - note this is only diagnosed diabetes). Deaths attributable to diabetes in New Zealand by 2030 could easily reach 50,000.
US diabetes costs are one-in-eight health dollars)