How much does Parkinson’s cost?
The Michael J Fox foundation recently published a study claiming that in the US the cost is $52 billion per year. That sounds like a big number but what does it actually mean?
Well, there are two types of cost: direct costs and indirect costs.
Direct costs are the money that is actually spent on Parkinson’s including hospitalisation, medical appointments and medication. According to the study, this part is $25.4 billion per year or an average of about $25,000 for each of the million or so PD sufferers in the US.
Let’s sanity check this figure. I pay £18 in prescription charges for my medication about six times per year. But the actual cost of that medication, for which the National Health Service foots the bill, I reckon is more like £250 a time or £1,500 per year. And, in the future, this figure will only go up as my prescription increases. In addition, I probably have an average of three medical appointments per year at a total cost of £1,000 or so, giving a total cost to the taxpayer of £2,500 per year.
Not so bad?
Not so bad right now, but in my later years I may need full time care. That typically costs something like £60,000 per year. If I assume I live 20 years with Parkinson’s and need significant care for the last 5 of those then we arrive at an average figure of £ 17,500 per year. This is pretty much in line with the Michael J Fox estimate, especially bearing in mind that healthcare in the US is more expensive than the UK.
The indirect costs are harder to estimate. These are things like lost income through time off work, early retirement and the cost of family members giving up their income to act as carers. The Michael J Fox study gives a figure of $26.5 billion for this or again roughly $25,000 for each PwP in the US.
Of course, loss of income is highly variable. If, like most people, you get diagnosed over the age of 65 then you are probably already retired anyway. In my own case I will most likely retire 4-5 years earlier than I would otherwise have done and because I am a relatively high earner the impact is significant. For each year that I could have been earning the taxman is losing tens of thousands of pounds and I am losing a lot more. In fact, both the taxman and I are already losing out because I currently work a 4½ day week due to the Parkinson’s fatigue.
Other factors, like the lost income of a spouse who chooses to go part-time to spend the rest of their time caring, are harder to estimate. And then there are other considerations like the fact that I have reduced life expectancy. Parkinson’s won’t directly kill me, but it will increase the risk of me choking, or put more pressure on my heart. My early death might in turn actually reduce the burden I place on the welfare state.
So the indirect costs are highly variable but the Michael J Fox number, as an average, seems reasonable.
In summary Parkinson’s costs about $50,000 or roughly £40,000 per person per year. These numbers don’t sound too bad until you multiply by the number of PwPs.
In the UK, that comes to around £5 billion a year. That’s enough to build perhaps 25 new hospitals.
However...
Thinking about it another way, if we cured all the diseases, we wouldn’t need so many hospitals or doctors, or nurses anyway. Or the medicines. Or specialist carers. Or the medical equipment. Or PhD students searching for answers. Or medical conferences that bring people together from across the globe.
Taking a broader view, a condition like Parkinson’s arguably stimulates economic activity that offsets much of what it takes from the public purse. These sorts of big dollar headlines need to be read with a sceptical eye.
So perhaps the most important financial impact is a personal one. I will be retiring early and maybe spending a chunk of my pension savings on care in later life, leaving me a lot less to live on. This is not such a big deal for me, given that I probably want to spend my twilight years watching endless boxsets and documentaries on Netflix rather than travelling around the world or driving a Jag. But, unfortunately, it does affect those closest to me.
