American Heart Association warns of “crushing”economic burden
A new studyby the American Heart Association (AHA) projects that if left unchecked, by 2035 cardiovascular disease (CVD) will affect 131.2 million Americans -- 45 percent of the total U.S. population – and place a crushing burden on the nation’s financial and health care systems, with a cost of $1.1 trillion.
“Our lawmakers should pay close attention to these projections as they deliberate changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the health care system,” said AHA President Steven Houser, Ph.D., FAHA. “If we are to avert this looming crisis, we must maintain access to health care coverage by protecting the ban on pre-existing conditions and enabling everyone to take advantage of an important weapon against CVD – prevention. Most importantly, we must invest more funding from the National Institutes of Health in heart and stroke research so we can give Americans the treatments and cures they will desperately need in the coming years.”