AIDS Treatment Cost in 1991 Put at $5.8 Billion

The nation’s medical bill for treating people with AIDS or the AIDS virus will reach $5.8 billion this year and will almost double to $10.4 billion in 1994, a federal study estimates.

The study is the first national estimate to consider not only people with AIDS but also those infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, the AIDS virus, author Fred Hellinger said.

Projected totals also included $7.2 billion in 1992 and $8.7 billion in 1993. By comparison, Hellinger noted that the annual cost of treating cancer was recently estimated at $35.3 billion.

He said his forecasts are underestimates because they exclude expensive medications approved since he did the calculations, as well as unapproved drugs and services, such as counseling, not covered by insurance or Medicaid.

Hellinger is director of the division of cost and financing at the federal Agency for Health Care Policy and Research. He will present his estimates in the fall issue of Inquiry, a journal dealing with health care organization, provision and financing.

Hellinger based his estimates on information from a variety of sources, including Medicaid studies in several states as well as research at treatment centers.

For the treatment of AIDS, he calculated a cost of $4.4 billion this year, based on an annual treatment cost of $32,000 per patient.

The treatment of HIV infection this year was estimated at $1.4 billion. The number covers only people actually receiving treatment, rather than the cost of treating every infected person. An estimated 1 million Americans are infected.

For 1994, his projections include a national cost of $7.9 billion for treatment of AIDS and $2.5 billion for treatment of the HIV infection.

Hellinger said that the costs could go higher, depending on approval of new treatments and the success of efforts to encourage people to find out if they are infected with the AIDS virus.