Using data from long-standing clinical trials, researchers projected the cost of caring for people with Type 2 diabetes as they progress from diagnosis to various complications and death. Enrolling federally-insured patients in a simple but aggressive program to control the disease would cost the government $1,024 per person per year -- money that largely would be recovered after 25 years through lower spending on dialysis, kidney transplants, amputations and other forms of treatment, the study found.
However, except for the youngest diabetics, the additional services would add to overall health spending, not decrease it, the study shows.
The recent blow to the Democrats from the Congressional Budget Office is confirmed in this study as well as others they used to make the same determination that preventative care will not cut costs as Obama has tried to maintain it would.
But CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf said the agency already has the authority to look at costs over a longer term, though not in the context of official estimates. He called the new study, which has been reviewed by CBO staff, "exactly the sort of research that we use in building our cost estimates. And we will consider these findings in future estimates we do in this area."
In its own analysis of preventive care, CBO said earlier this month that the cost of making cancer screening, cholesterol management and other services broadly available is likely to far outweigh any savings ultimately generated. The new study looks at a more narrow population -- people already diagnosed with diabetes -- and projects the cost of providing them with a very specific regimen of frequent checkups and diagnostic tests that has produced predictable results in clinical trials. (Treatment for other forms of disease may vary in their costs.)
To be clear, the study does show that it is possible that longer forecasts, might just save some money, although not nearly as much as Obama and the Democrats have been telling the public.
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