Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona, Colorado first lady Jeannie Ritter, Denver Bronco Daniel Graham and former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb are part of the bipartisan group that launched the Colorado Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease this week.

The group was at the Capitol on Tuesday and in Grand Junction on Wednesday to ask lawmakers to make the cause a campaign issue.

The group said chronic disease cost Colorado $3.4 billion in treatment costs in 2003. Colorado's role as a battleground state in the presidential election and host state for the Democratic National Convention led the national Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease to pick the state for the campaign.

WASHINGTON — By 2017, consumers and taxpayers will spend more than $4 trillion on health care, accounting for $1 of every $5 spent, the federal government projects.

The 6.7 percent annual increase in spending — nearly three times the rate of inflation — will be largely driven by higher prices and an increased demand for care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Monday. But other factors in the mix include a growing and aging population. The first wave of baby boomers becomes eligible for Medicare beginning in 2011.

With the aging population, the federal government will be picking up the tab for a growing share of the nation's medical expenses.

Overall, federal and state governments accounted for about 46 percent of health expenditures in 2006. That percentage will increase to 49 percent over the next decade.

"Health is projected to consume an expanding share of the economy, which means that policymakers, insurers and the public will face increasingly difficult decisions about the way healthcare is delivered and paid for," CMS economists said.

Overall healthcare spending in 2017 was estimated to increase to $4.3 trillion