It’s not just diabetes, but heart disease, hypertension, cancer and other chronic conditions that are at the heart of America’s healthcare crisis. An estimated 133 million people, almost half of all Americans today, live with at least one chronic condition, and the number continues to grow. Consider that 75 percent of the $2.1 trillion spent on healthcare in the United States goes to treat people who suffer from chronic conditions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has said that “the United States cannot effectively address escalating health care costs without addressing the problem of chronic diseases.” Below are two graphs from the chartbook Chronic Conditions: Making the Case for Ongoing Care prepared by Gerard Anderson of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.