foodconsumer.org: Health care rates soar with weight

Health care rates soar with weight
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admin on 07/28/2009 00:08:00
 
By Sheilah Downeyn(sheilahd@foodconsumer.org)
The price tag for the Obama administration's health care plan just got a little
heftier, a study released today indicates.
The annual medical costs for treating obese people in the United States is
estimated at $147 billion, more than double the price in less than a decade,
reported RTI International, the Agency for Healthcare Research and the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
When people begin ballooning to a body mass index of 30 or greater, so do the
costs to treat them, reported researchers.
Between 1998 and 2006, the prevalence of obesity in the United States rose by 37
percent and was responsible for an 89 percent increase in obesity costs for that
same period, stated the authors in the journal Health Affairs.
"Across all payers, obese people had medical spending that was $1429 greater
than spending for normal weight people in 2006," said the study's lead author
Dr. Eric Finkelstein, director of RTI.
While obesity treatments such as bariatric surgery are becoming more popular, he
said, in actuality those treatments are rare.
"As a result, the medical costs attributable to obesity are almost entirely a
result of costs generated from treating the diseases that obesity promotes," he
wrote. "Thus obesity will continue to impose a significant burden on the health
care system as long as the prevalence of obesity is high."
Obesity is linked to a multitude of medical conditions, including diabetes,
heart disease, stroke, arthritis and certain types of cancer.