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medpundit |
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Thursday, January 22, 2004The new study -- which doesn't include children, whose obesity rates are soaring -- found that 5.7 percent of the nation's health care expenses are for treatment of obesity. That is roughly the same percentage spent on treatment for the effects of smoking. The burden is greater for taxpayer-funded programs: 6.8 percent of Medicare costs and 10.6 percent of Medicaid costs are spent on treatment of obesity. Medicare is a federal program for seniors and the disabled, and Medicaid is a federal and state program for the poor. The study, the first to break down obesity costs by state, focuses on all medical expenses incurred by obese people that exceed the medical expenses of the non-obese. This included all costs for all medical treatment, whether paid by private insurance or public programs. Indirect costs, such as lost productivity and time away from work, were not considered. If the study looked at the use of healthcare dollars by people over a certain weight, then it might be valid. But, if it just looked at "obesity-related illnesses" such as heart failure, diabetes, hypertension, and coronary artery disease, and caclulated an estimated cost based on the percentage of obese people in the population, then it isn't valid. But what's concerning is this statement by one of the researchers: This allows each state to see how much they spend on obesity," said Eric Finkelstein, an RTI researcher. "It should encourage states and employers to figure out how to reduce these costs. And how would they do that? Refuse to pay for the medical care of the obese? That's inhumane. We don't refuse coverage of the HIV infected because they aquired their infection through sexual promiscuity or intravenous drug abuse. We don't refuse coverage of prenatal care and delivery of unwed mothers because their condition is self-inflicted. But such is the nature of the "war on obesity" that something punitive is bound to result. Remember, the only difference between the sins of the obese and the sins of others (alcoholics, drug abusers, the sexually promiscuous, etc.) is that the wages of their sin can't be hidden from the public eye. UPDATE: The abstract is here, but the full paper requires a subscription. This description of their methods from the abstract is not encouraging, however: We developed an econometric model that predicts medical expenditures. We used this model and state-representative data to quantify obesity-attributable medical expenditures. In other words, they just took a wild guess. posted by Sydney on 1/22/2004 07:59:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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