I’m sure you’ve seen some variation of this story by now.
The number of Texans with diabetes will nearly quadruple from 2.2 million to 8 million in the next 30 years, threatening the solvency of the state’s medical system, according to a state report released Tuesday.
The alarming projections serve as both a “wake-up call and a call to action,” said Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound.
About 1 in 12 Texans have diabetes today.
“The numbers are shocking,” Nelson said after the Texas Health Institute report was released. “I want my colleagues and the public to see what will happen if we don’t change behavior, if we don’t do something now.”
[…]
More nutritional meals and exercise can help prevent diabetes. But the tendency to eat more fast food has resulted in a growing epidemic of obesity among Texas children, according to the report, which notes that more than 20 percent of Texas children between the ages of 10 and 17 are considered obese.
Children also don’t get enough physical exercise.
“You put those two factors together, and it’s a disaster,” said Dr. Victor Gonzalez, chairman of the Texas Diabetes Council.
The Trib had the story first, on Monday, and it seems to have made the rounds in the dailies since then. The Trib story talks about what kind of public policy the state could adopt to head off this problem.
In a series of statewide roundtables funded by diabetes giants Novo Nordisk and Roche Diagnostics, health care experts offered a range of strategies. But those that appear most effective — implementing a statewide screening program, expanding diabetes self-management training for patients and closing the benefit gap between Medicaid and CHIP so pregnant mothers can have access to gestational diabetes supplies — come at a cost that lawmakers are unlikely to meet when they’re starting down a potential $25 billion budget hole.
It goes without saying that despite Sen. Nelson’s concern, the state will do absolutely nothing to address the problem. To be fair, the Lege would be unlikely to do anything about it even if we were looking at a $25 billion surplus. That’s just not how we roll around here. In fact, given that diabetes and obesity are strongly correlated with poverty, it’s almost certainly the case that the state will take action to make the problem worse and the future costs higher, all in the name of “fiscal responsibility”. But at least our property taxes will stay low. That’s got to count for something, right?
If we had infrastructure where people could walk and bike, there would be less diabetes.
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