Diabetes Care Leads In US Health Care Spending

A new study for health care costs found that just 20 conditions make up more than half of all spending on health care in the United States. The study observed 155 conditions, and showed that the most expensive health condition was diabetes, which totaled to an amount of $101 billion. The total included costs of diagnoses and treatment costs. The study tracked personal health care spending for an 18-year period from 1996-2013 and found that a total of $30.1 trillion was spent on health care in the United States. Lead author, Dr. Joseph Dieleman, said "While it is well known that the U.S. spends more than any other nation on health care, very little is known about what diseases drive that spending." He then continued to say that they are "... trying to fill the information gap so that decision-makers in the public and private sectors can understand the spending landscape, and plan and allocate health resources more effectively."