An Unhealthy America:The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease

DeVol, Ross and Bedroussian, Armen and Charuworn, Anita and Chatterjee, Anusuya and Kim, In Kyu and Kim, Soojung and Klowden, Kevin (2007) An Unhealthy America:The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease .:1-239.

Abstract

More than half of Americans suffer from one or more chronic diseases. Each year millions of people are diagnosed with chronic disease, and millions more die from their condition. By our calculations, the most common chronic diseases are costing the economy more than $1 trillion annually— and that figure threatens to reach $6 trillion by the
middle of the century. Yet much of this cost is avoidable. This failure to contain the containable is undermining prospects for extending health insurance coverage and for coping with the medical costs of an aging population. The rising rate of chronic disease is a crucial but frequently ignored contributor to growth in medical expenditures.
Of course, the personal and financial consequences of avoidable illness are greatest for those who become ill and their families. In this research, however, we focused on the narrower, more tangible costs of chronic illness: the medical resources used to treat avoidable illness; the impact on labor supply (primarily through lower productivity), and thus GDP; and the drag on long-term economic growth.