The changes 2009 is bringing in the way people look at diabetes

Well, we’re more than a month into 2009, and we’re curious to see what happens with diabetes over the next year. It seems like these days not only the government but also diabetes companies and insurance providers are focusing on prevention and early management of the disease. One of the clearest examples of this trend is a new diabetes plan from UnitedHealthcare that provides for many diabetes medications without co-pays in exchange for compliance to standard treatment guidelines (read this issue’s New Now Next for more details).

We’re looking forward to hearing more details about President Obama’s national health care plan. According to his current plan, people would not be turned away or pay high premiums for pre-existing conditions, which means that our diabetes should never stand in the way of getting money for the health care we need. Hopefully we won’t have to worry that the plan will somehow disappear off the administration’s to-do list because of the economic crisis — the President has already started linking more efficient health care to his fiscal stimulus package. Of course, we’ve all learned that candidates often promise more than they’re able to deliver, but it looks like there may be good things on the horizon.

As always, we’re doing our part to help promote innovation and development in diabetes treatments. Toward that end, please sign our petition asking for the establishment of a patient body to advise the FDA. We put this petition together with Amy Tenderich of DiabetesMine, Manny Hernandez of TuDiabetes, and a whole host of other patient advocates. If you’ve already signed the petition, thank you!

In this issue we’re featuring the debut of Thinking Like a Pancreas, a new column by Gary Scheiner MS, CDE all about advanced techniques to help you better manage your blood glucose levels. We’re glad to welcome Gary to the team! To celebrate, we’re offering a free giveaway of Gary’s Integrated Diabetes Services pump management program, which includes an assessment of your diabetes management (pumping, CGM, and more) and access to his team of diabetes experts.

Finally, we’d like to give a big thank-you to everybody who took the time to fill out our feedback survey! We are looking forward to making some improvements, based on your comments about diaTribe.