Diabetes: At least it's keeping America's wallets thin

Let's go over some statistics:

It is estimated that 23.6 million Americans have Diabetes Mellitus (DM)
There were 1.5 million NEW cases of DM in 2007 in 18-70 year-olds (this age range is relevant for a future equation)
It cost $174 billion to treat DM in 2007 -For this post I'll estimate that 80% was paid for by health insurance companies (HIC) ~ $139billion
HIC pay $5900 to treat a person EACH year with DM.
There are 57 million people in the USA with Pre-diabetes
Most Type 2 DM is preventable! <--This is definitely a fact!

Now that we've covered some basic stats we can really get into the meat and potatoes. The average cost of gym membership around the Boston area is roughly $30-60 a month with a low of $10, high of around $110 (kind of ridiculous). That being said, the average cost of a gym membership in the area per year is in the $360-$720 range ($540 average). Now, to me, the $540 a year is definitely worth it. I become a grumpy, unmotivated, unpleasant person if I have missed the gym a couple days in a row. To some the benefits of working out are well known, but the costs are just not possible to maintain without help. My health insurance give me $150 a year for gym memberships which seems pretty average. $150 of $540 is ~25% of the cost of going to the gym.

(Refer to the statistics above) Don't you think that HICs can afford the extra $390 bucks when they're willing to pay out $5900 a year if I were to get DM? For $5900 I could get 11 years of gym memberships! I think more people would go to the gym if their HICs would cover the total cost, and HICs would give more money if people could prove that they were actually using the gym (which is pretty easy to do).

If I got DM at 45 and lived until I was 75 that is $177000 my HIC would probably pay for me!! Enough to pay for over 325 years of gym memberships.

Remember 6th grade math? Let's review.
225million is the population in USA aged 18+ X $540 for gym memberships = 121,000,000,000
139,000,000,000 - 121,000,000,000 = $18,000,000,000/5900 = 3,050,847 people able to still be treated for diabetes. Currently 57 million people have pre-diabetes! The CDC says lifestyle modification can reduce your chances of getting DM by 60%. If all these people got DM it would cost HI $420 billion to treat, plus all the people who already have DM, but if only 40% get it, it will only cost ~$160 billion more. HICs will save $250 billion. Talk about a stimulus plan.

Sure, there are a lot of factors that go into this scenario, but the government and HICs have the resources to figure out the statistics. It will definitely cost HICs money up front to reduce the number of consumers with DM, but their savings in the long run (10-20 years) will be gigantic! I mean I did some pretty basic math with my laptop calculator and seemed to be able to make some sense of it. HICs (Medicare included) are seemingly taking their chances with our futures, to save a couple bucks right now. Okay, a recession may not be the best time for HI companies to take this preventative approach towards DM. However, there are other less prevalent but devastating conditions, such as senior citizen falls, that may warrant a preventative approach.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that the HICs and the government have gone over these numbers and figured out why it would cost more to provide preventative medicine instead of retroactive care. As far as I know there are studies out there that actually state this as fact. I'm not saying that every citizen needs to get blood sugar tests, and all the other work ups that would add up to being more expensive than the current methods of care, but regardless of risk level, I do think that HICs need to provide a larger incentive to those who are taking preventative measures into their own hands, BUT, people need to provide their attendence records from their gyms to get these discounts(which is very easy)! That's pretty much the point of this post. HICs and the government cannot be held completely responsible for how we take care of OUR bodies.

In this time when health care is apparently being reformed, the HICs need to figure out how to lower costs as much as they can. They need to think of dishing out some money to help us individuals prevent future DM as an INVESTMENT, not as a loss to their bottom line. Because to Americans, the ultimate health care bottom line just happens to be a flat line.

Statistics can be found at:
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/pdf/ndfs_2007.pdf
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-statistics/cost-of-diabetes-in-us.jsp