Want to get health care costs under control? Then someone ought to pay attention to yesterday's sobering news from the Centers for Disease Control. Rates of diabetes in the U.S. nearly doubled in the past decade, according to the latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. For every 1,000 persons over 18, there were 9.1 persons with diabetes in 2005-07 compared to 4.8 persons in 1995-97, and that's after adjusting for the aging of the overall population.

Want to know the worst off parts of the country? You can check your state's statistics here. Idaho saw the largest increase closely followed by . . . Texas! Yes, President George W. Bush's Lone Star state saw its diabetes rate go from a below average 3.1 cases per 1,000 to a stunning 11.1 persons -- a 208 percent increase.

Pull back and look at the nation by regions, and the Midwest had the lowest overall rate of diabetes even as its rate skyrocketed like the rest of the country. The West had the slowest rate of increase in the past decade, led by California's very moderate 36 percent increase that saw it go from well above the national average to slightly below.

The South, as always, led the nation in this costly health problem. Diabetes is s closely associated obesity, low income, poor diet and lower educational attainment -- the other areas where the South wins awards for least likely to succeed.

Diabetes is among the nation's most costly chronic diseases, with health care costs ranging up to $100,000 per person per year. Yes, we need health care reform so that everyone is insured. Yes, we need health care system reform so that costs are held down for both routine and chronic disease care. But until we as a nation implement serious public health prevention programs aimed at holding down the skyrocketing rate of chronic diseases like diabetes, there's simply no hope of doing either effectively.