There's arguably no greater challenge facing American health care than the explosion of chronic diseases. Diabetes, heart disease, asthma, and their various nasty colleagues are costing the country about $1.3 trillion a year, and it's only going to get worse. Much worse, if diabetes and obesity continue their forward march. But the thing about chronic diseases is that they can be managed, often quite cheaply, if people get the care they require. If people don't get the maintenance care they require, however, a low-intensity chronic condition has the potential to spiral into a high cost, acute catastrophe. And the difference between prescribing statin pills and treating a massive coronary is tremendous. So it's not exactly good news that about 11 million of the uninsured have chronic diseases (turns out they're not all young invincibles with no need for health insurance after all), and about 25 percent of them haven't seen a doctor in over a year. Many of those people will die an early death. Many more will simply have catastrophic health problems, which will be more expensive for the rest of us, and probably leave them maimed and unwell. From a health perspective, an economics perspective, and a moral perspective, this is indefensible.
