New research published online in “The Economic Burden of Asthma in the United States, 2008 - 2013,” gives a very comprehensive breakdown of the economic issues surrounding asthma in the United States.
Out of 213,994 people in the pooled sample, 10,237 persons had treated asthma (prevalence = 4.8%). The annual per-capita incremental medical cost of asthma was $3,266 (in 2015 US dollars): $1,830 was attributable to prescription medication, $640 to office visits, $529 to hospitalizations, $176 to hospital-based outpatient visits, and $105 to emergency room visits. For certain groups, the per-person incremental medical cost of asthma differed from that of the population average, namely, $2,145 for uninsured persons and $3.581 for those living below the poverty line. During 2008-2013, asthma was responsible for $3 billion in losses from missed work and school days, $29 billion from asthma-related mortality, and $50.3 billion in medical costs. All combined, the total cost of asthma in the U.S. based on the pooled sample amounted to $81.9 billion in 2013.
Eureka Alert! explains that the authors of the study consider these numbers on the low side as they did not account for people with untreated asthma, nor did the study include non-medical costs such as transportation and diminished productivity while trying to function with asthma.
"The findings of the paper highlight the critical need to support and further strengthen asthma control strategies," Dr. Nurmagambetov said. "CDC's National Asthma Control Program was founded in 1999 to help reduce the burden of asthma in the United States. In order to reduce asthma-related ER visits, hospitalizations, absenteeism and mortality, we need to support guidelines-based care, expand self-management education and reduce environmental asthma triggers at homes."
With the Trump administration and a complicit Republican Party holding our healthcare system hostage, and with the polluters of our world working racist “science” to explain away the respiratory costs of “doing business,” it feels like important information analysis like that being done here might slip through the cracks.