Overweight elderly Americans contribute to financial burdens of the US health care system
July 25, 2008Being overweight or obese is not only a personal issue that affects one's health but is also a public health issue that impacts other people in society. A new study in the journal Health Services Research reveals that the extra Medicare cost associated with overweight elderly people could place a significant financial burden on tax payers, costing up to hundreds of billions of dollars across the entire current Medicare population.
The article's findings show that treating the health needs of an overweight or obese elderly person will cost Medicare 6 to 17 percent more over a lifetime than treating an elderly person with a healthy weight.
The authors used a measure of weight that takes into account a person's height, known as the body mass index and looked at total costs from Medicare alone for individuals covered from age 65 until death. The extra demands made of the healthcare system by overweight and obese elderly amounts to Medicare's spending on average an extra $15,000 on overweight elderly individuals and an extra $26,000 on obese individuals.
"Our research provides valuable information for why the public and health policy makers need to pay attention to the financial burden of health care for overweight Americans besides it's being just a health issue," Professor Zhou Yang at Emory University conclude. "More aggressive public health campaigns or early behavioral or policy intervention to stop the obesity epidemic could be cost-effective as well as otherwise beneficial for society."
Zhou Yang, Ph.D., MPH of Emory University and Allyson G. Hall of University of Florida used data from the longitudinal Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey from 1992 to 2001 to construct a model of the relationship between body weight and health care expenditures amongst different baseline weights at age 65 followed up to death.
Source: Wiley
Oct 28, 2009 |
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The fact that you are placing a monetary value on such things shows that you have little or no respect for those the article speak of. shame.
Is that word still in your vocabulary? "shame"?
This also goes for the general N. American population. All the way from the parents to the kids. Don`t resent your kids while they`re growing up or you WILL end up in a senior`s home. Show them your love, respect and teach them how to love their own kids in turn.
Government is very critical to society well-being... but the society and its current ideals/ethics is what determines the course of the government in the years to come.
Let`s just stay on topic with the article pls.
first it's raise taxes on tobacco products to help cover healthcare (thus making it your civic duty to smoke)...
next it'll be introducing taxes on food products (which are traditionally untaxed) to cover obesity costs.
social security- tax you
tobacco- tax you
obesity- tax you
Wow, just... wow. How about accepting some personal responsibility for individual actions and choices and the correlation between those choices and SELF respect? And while you're at it, accepting some parental/personal responsibility for the diets of your own children. The article's point however was about cause and effect and the burden it places on every one of us as the problem escalates without a fundamental public policy focal shift.
This makes no sense. We pay for healthcare to keep us healthy. The healthcare industry needs perpetually unhealthy people that depend on their service. Healthcare can never work as it should ideally if it's for profit. There is no money in healing people, but there is plenty of money in maintaining them. Fat unhealthy people are the reason you can find a doctor's office with 5 miles of your house.
Supply and demand along with margins are very scary things when they apply to your health.
This is just the way the free market works. This isn't to say that private corps shouldn't play a roll - even a big roll - in healthcare, just that they should not, and cannot, be primary providers, or research fund directors. If they are, they will *have* to choose the direction that is best for their shareholders, and that direction isn't in the best interests of the general population. This is why anti-biotic research has all but stopped; in a decade or two we're really going to start feeling the results of that decision:P.
There are just some sectors that can't be controlled by governments, and there are others that can't be controlled by corps. No one suggests that we should have privately controlled military forces, because that wouldn't be good for populous. Healthcare is the same way.
This is a start.
The "shame" is really in the denial that these unhealthy folks live with.
As a person lives out a long life, chances are they will eventually accrue large medical costs. The article is just trying to point out that those who choose to be obese are likely to be eating a larger share of the healthcare pie.
The next step is for society to decide to either penalize the obese, or to spread the burden to everyone. And since obesity is an individual choice(along with the attendant denial), it makes sense to create some sort of "sin tax" for those who choose this lifestyle. An alternative would be some "reward" system for those of us who choose to maintain a healthier wieght.
We pressure smokers to quit, we make motorcyclists wear helmets, we require seatbelts to be buckled. There are countless safety laws, regulations and sin taxes. Including obesity would certainly make sense.
Personally, I would be supportive of penalizing parents of obese children and all obese adults. I'm just not sure how, as the "action" involved is so easy to hide.
One question, for both the group and the study: Does this higher than normal weight include people who carry extra muscle as opposed to extra fat?
And second, it is taboo to mention or point out or in any way openly attempt to help an obese person see the folly of their ways. You can point out that someone is wearing miss-matched socks, that their golf swing is in error and even ask them to not smoke. But there is utterly no accepted way to intervene for the benefit of an obese person.
These two factors combine to the extreme detriment of obese people. Solving the second would be a great starter. I just have no idea how to begin without risking personal injury. Any thoughts?
Frankly, I'm overweight. Of course, I feel I have legitimate reasons. I wouldn't mind being penalized quite so much -- if I thought smokers were also being penalized. And, I'm not trying to pretend this isn't subjective, but I bet most people have such subjective feelings -- I look at some sports activities -- where I know they have a high risk of breaking an arm or leg. In the context of this subject, I'm asking myself, if I'm penalized for being overweight, why aren't they, for their dangerous behavior? I guess I'm saying there isn't an easy place to draw the line.
You should be able to choose what you want to cover in your policy, if you are overweight or want to be protected in case you will you should pay proportionally more. Same should go for all other health risks, including smoking and sport.
If you chose lower policy and you gain weight later then you will have to pay that extra percentage of the health costs yourself.
I believe that would be a fair system.
The simple added cost of eating excess food clearly does not work, though you'd think it might. It doesn't.
We, as a society of people who want a brighter future, need to slow down the eating. That's clear.
You. You there! Please, please, stop eating more than you should. It will end your life prematurely. It will cost the rest of us needlessly. How simple an idea. Yet so uncomprehensible to a growing number of otherwise apparently intelligent people.
If it were a victimless self-destruction that would be one thing. But it is not. The nature of health insurance is that we all pay, whether national-socialized medicine or not, it makes no difference. We all pay for each other. So, for a group of individuals to assume the priviledge of consuming excess healthcare due to their excessive behavior is unfair.
So, I ask you, please, eat intelligently. If you find you can not. Please seek help. We will help you.
What the poor often don't understand is that every govt program increases taxes, and all taxes are pretty much a "poor tax". The poor want entitlements and assume the rich will pay. They won't. Take money from a rich citizen and he buys less services and luxury items made by the poor. Take money from corporations and those corps promptly take it out of blue collar benefits. Create money with printing presses (by lowering the prime rate) and (although it has the advantage of being a world-tax) it hurts the poor because most poor keep any savings they do have in banks rather than investments. Yes, the free market has fairly rare problems that sometimes need to be addressed by govt (like trusts & monopolies) but the free market is a far better band-aide for greed than govt regulations that are always poorly thought-out and administered, mainly because those responsible for it have little accountability.
Damon: "Would you advocate privatising roads, schools, and parks?"
There are three separate talking points here.
First, in my post I confirm the govt's role in regulating monopolies, yet you respond as if I am condoning monopolies. From this I can only conclude you either don't know what a monopoly is, or you didn't read the post to which you are responding.
Second is the question of HOW subject to monopolization are those things you mention. That's a subject deserving of another thread I think! I will say that certainly roads and parks are VERY subject to monopolization because its hard for people to make a choice in what roads they will use (but not impossible--they can even change where they live, if they have to)--but there can be a ~little~ competition in that area, and there already is in the contractor bidding process (assuming its done ethically) and the freedom to move.
Third, you speak as if it has to be one way or the other. It doesn't. Private schools are the prime example. Note that prominent public health care proposals being put forth actually PROHIBIT private health care. Rather, let the govt compete with everybody else--the free market allows that.
Maybe I should give this whole 'bashing people for a condition that most can't help' a try though...why not give a big FU to cancer patients. They surely eat up a lot of resources, and if they would have stuck to an all organic diet, not lived under power lines and never used a cell phone they probably wouldn't have the tumor in their head. What about paralyzed people? They eat up a TON of resources! Let's give them the boot too. That'll teach them for skiing! Don't even get me started on sick children! Those little bastards never worked a day in their life and I gotta pay so that they get to live into their teens? God Damn these unhealthy people for using up my healthcare! What right do they have? Wow, that was easy! I can just alienate people that aren't like me if their well being costs me anything. Fantastic! Screw you fat grandma, you probably deserve to die!
Thank you all for showing me this amazing crutch! I can turn difficult moral choices into monetary ones, brilliant!
So how do you know you can't help being fat?? Limit calorie intake and you WILL slim down there is NO doubt about that.
Do you think its fair to take the money from people who don't have enough to support themselves and their children and give them to someone else cause that person can't deny himself food?
You CAN eat less, it is YOUR choice if you don't, take responsibility for YOUR choices like we all do for OURS. The whole society is build around taking responsibility for your actions. If we accept that fat people don't have a choice to eat less then we have to accept that rapers don't have a choice not to rape and killers - not to kill.
Finally its not like we propose to lock overweight in concentration camps! All we propose it that they cover their extra insurance costs themselves!
Granted, there are land whales out there who could probably lose 100 lbs if they didn't get a handicapped sticker and had to walk a few hundred yards to their car.
For most poeple it's just not that simple though. If you could simply 'eat less' to lose weight we'd all look like supermodels.
If someone actually has a problem and is using the system I don't care about paying a little more for their well being. Saying that someone isn't taking care of themselves so they should pay more is a very dangerous statement. What if the next time you go to the doctor he notices you cholesterol is a little high, and that you have a sunburn, then he charges you more for the visit? What if they find traces of alcohol, nicotine or caffiene in your system, should they be allowed to charge you more?
Can anyone lead me to sources that can clarify this? And all due respect, please, and I'm sure you are well informed, but please, no rants, just sources, if you could. (Well, you can rant a little, I mean this is a comments blog.)
I'm also fascinated with the various notions of penalizing unsafe behavior and would offer this observation: obesity is a long-term on-going "behavior." And importantly, there is no safe way to practice it. This is an important distinction, as there are safe ways to mountain climb, bungee jump, and many of the other things people do when living life to the fullest. One can even drink alcohol safely, I think.
But there is no safe cigarette. And there is no safe obesity. So separating "wreckless" behavior from "risky" behavior is important if we're going to start penalizing people. There is a world of difference.
I'd go so far as to speculate that safe mountain climbers and safe sky divers probably consume LESS healthcare resources than the average person.
But I am looking forward to some links or recommendations on the obesity choice vs no choice subject.