Federal Spending On Diabetes Study

In 2007, NCDP commissioned the nationally respected health care policy research firm Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. to identify the range and kinds of federal programs, authority and funding that may influence the incidence, prevalence, treatment and progression of diabetes.

The results of the report showed that there is a lack of effective, coordinated federal leadership and spending in diabetes prevention, treatment and care. Key findings from the study include:

• The federal government spends nearly $80 billion annually to treat people with diabetes and care for its complications.
• This accounts for roughly 12 percent of total federal health care spending.
• Only about $4 billion is spent on disease prevention and health promotion activities likely to affect diabetes.
• Though 18 out of 21 government agencies have their own individual diabetes programs, there is a lack of alignment and coordination across agencies.

In response to these conclusions, NCDP is working to promote coordinated federal leadership and spending on diabetes prevention, treatment and care by using research to support policy and legislative change.

NCDP and its membership association partners issued the following recommendations to Congress to improve federal leadership and alignment of diabetes resources:

• A National Diabetes Coordinator should be appointed to manage the alignment of federal diabetes programs.
• Diabetes should be raised on the national agenda through a Congressional resolution recognizing World Diabetes Day.
• Congress should evaluate its system of assigning scores to new legislation, to ensure that preventive health care measures are reflected as costs savings.
• As the nation's largest purchaser of health care, the federal government should create a model for health plan benefits that reflects attention to diabetes care and prevention.
• Members of Congress should provide information and resources about existing Medicare diabetes benefits to their constituents.
• Funding for diabetes prevention, early treatment and research should be at a level proportionate to the national burden of diabetes.

In June 2007, NCDP held a Congressional Briefing to share the study results and recommendations with the Congressional Diabetes Caucus. Click here to view a photo gallery and video from the Briefing.

Following the release of the recommendations, concurrent bills in the House and Senate were passed showing Congressional support for recognizing World Diabetes Day. Legislation to create the position of National Diabetes Coordinator was introduced in the House and Senate and is gaining support. In addition, NCDP has initiated the federal scoring project.

Federal Scoring Project

Preventive health care measures, while important to the proper care of diabetes and prevention of costly complications, are often difficult to measure in terms of return on investment. The current federal legislative scoring process often does not consider return on investment when scoring of preventive health legislation. If disease preventive measures are not seen as valuable investments in the health of the nation, the availability of screening and preventive health care available in federally funded health care programs may be limited.

The National Changing Diabetes® Program seeks to change this process with the Federal Scoring Project. NCDP will soon conduct new research that will outline current scoring methods, missed opportunities and recommendations for new scoring methods.