Number of People with Blindess Could Double in 20 Years, Placing Burden on Medicare, Study Says

The number of Americans ages 40 and older who suffer from blindness could double over the next two decades, which would place a "huge drain" on Medicare, according to a new federal report released March 20, USA Today reports. The report, issued by the National Eye Institute and Prevent Blindness America, a not-for-profit group, found that the number of Americans ages 40 and older who suffer from blindness could increase from about one million today to 1.8 million by 2020. In addition, the report found that an additional 3.4 million will suffer from "impaired vision that could threaten their way of life." According to the report, increased incidence of diabetic retinopathy, which causes blood vessels in the eye to leak; age-related macular degeneration, which affects the part of the eye that controls "central vision"; cataracts, which cloud the eye; and glaucoma, which causes "slow damage" to the optic nerve, could contribute to the estimated rise in the number of Americans who suffer from blindness. David Friedman, lead author of the report and a professor at the Wilmer Eye Institute of Johns Hopkins University, said that based on the results of the report, the amount that Medicare pays for treatment of eye-related conditions would increase. Medicare pays about $3.4 billion per year to treat cataracts today. Friedman said that Americans should undergo regular eye exams and maintain a low-fat diet and a regular exercise regimen to help avoid some eye-related problems (Fackelmann, USA Today, 3/21). "If nothing is done, and we just go on the way we're going now, we're going to have a massive increase in the number of visually impaired and blind," he said (Schmid, AP/Detroit Free Press, 3/21). The report is available online.