Summary
A new study by Emory University researchers found that, between 1987 and 2002, private health spending on obesity increased from $3.6 billion to $36.5 billion, Forbes reports, and the study also showed more than half of the growth in spending was due to increased prevalence of disease rather cost of treatment.
Original source:
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2005/06/27/hscout526522.html
Details
- Americans' widening waistlines are the main force behind rising U.S. health care costs, a new study shows.
- Between 1987 and 2002, the proportion of private health spending attributable to obesity increased more than tenfold, researchers report, from $3.6 billion to $36.5 billion.
- In the year 2002, obesity-related medical care spending accounted for 11.6 percent of all private health care spending compared to just 2 percent in 1987, concludes an article published today in Health Affairs.
- "We need to have the same type of societal attention on this issue that we gave to smoking 20 years ago," Thorpe added.
- Specifically, they were concerned with spending among privately insured adults aged 18 to 64 for the top 20 medical conditions.
- "We found overwhelmingly that the rise in private insurance spending was traced to the fact that we were treating more and more people with a variety of chronic health conditions," Thorpe said.
- In other words, more people are sick now than before; predominantly with conditions linked to obesity such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
- This means that in 2001, obese adults with private health insurance spent $1,244 more per person per year on health care than normal-weight adults.
- "Obesity is a very expensive health problem and, unlike some other health problems, doesn't appear to be topping out.
- It appears to be accelerating," said Dr. Tom Farley, co-author of Prescription for a Healthy Nation and professor of community health sciences at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans.
- This is a society-wide problem and we need society-wide solutions."
- Unfortunately, the debate on how to curb this growth in obesity and its related expense is focusing on the wrong issues, Thorpe said.
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