It's a lot cheaper to pay $75 for an educator visit than it is to pay thousands of dollars for a major surgery because of a diabetes complication. How (insurance companies) are looking at this is very backwards.

As part of treatment we talk about weight loss, but for most of our patients, this is really where they really get stuck. For a lot of our patients losing weight is a motivation factor; many of them are not making a conscious effort to be physically active on a regular basis.

When you look at the epidemic of obesity in this country, which is not going away anytime soon, you can quickly see how the number of people with type 2 diabetes is skyrocketing. It truly is going to become a health care crisis because there are not enough practitioners, educators, or programs out there to help these people.

You can take all of these medications, but they're not getting to the major source of the problem, which is an overweight society. It's quite a battle and your heart goes out to these people because diabetes is something they think about all the time - it can consume them.

Thank you very much. I'd like to visit you, Mr. President.

High-tech is a good way to get them interested. But if they visit and can't find a parking place and the school is not hospitable, then all that hard work is negated.