The Delivery and Financing of Care for People with Chronic Conditions

The American health care system is not set up to meet and pay for all of the needs of people with chronic illness. Insurance and government programs do not pay for many of the costs of chronic care. This causes great financial hardship, even bankruptcy, for people with serious chronic conditions.

Beyond medical treatments, people with chronic conditions often have a variety of social and environmental needs. For example, a person with diabetes would benefit tremendously from learning how to pick and eat the right foods. A child with asthma needs to understand how to control symptoms but would do much better if his or her home and school were free of the kind of substances that aggravate asthma symptoms. Except in rare instances, our system is not set up to address these concerns.