Type 2 Diabetes is predominantly caused by obesity. Obesity is defined as a body mass index, BMI, in excess of 30. Type 2 Diabetes currently affects 5.9% of the population and this is increasing at the rate of 6% per year. In 2008 we estimate that it costs $275 billion in fully loaded health care costs and this was 12% of the total. By 2030 we estimate that it will take 20% of all health care costs if left unabated.
We have prepared a White Paper detailing how this can be turned around by taxing at the source. As was done in tobacco tax, thus reducing male cancers by almost half in twenty five years, we believe the same if not more can be accomplished in the area of Type 2 Diabetes.
We conclude in the paper the following.
1. Type 2 Diabetes is a disease caused by the person having it. It is a self induced disease for almost all. A very few have a massive as yet identified genetic flaw, but that is de minimis. It is obesity as the main and almost sole cause.
2. The prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes is growing exponentially and the term of epidemic is not unjustly employed. It is an epidemic resulting from childhood lack of food control, lack of exercise, and lack of recognition that the problem is moving downward in age and becoming explosive as that population itself ages.
3. The current means of managing Type 2 Diabetes with drugs such as metformin, insulin, sulfonylureas, and others mask the true problems and in many ways exacerbate the secondary disease states.
4. Type 2 Diabetes is now at 12% of the total health care costs and with its current growth rate combined with costs and population may reach 25% of the total health care budget. This disease has the sole potential for collapsing the health care system.
5. Type 2 Diabetes is a disease which can be controlled and possibly eliminated by purely open market means. By pricing carbohydrates at a point that exceed the propensity to buy, then there will be a reduction in carbohydrate driven obesity. This is akin to taxing the use of tobacco in cigarettes.
6. The use of combined drugs such as statins and the existing insulin modulating drugs oftentimes create additional tertiary health problems that add to the overall burden while also costing a great deal in the use of the drugs themselves.
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