Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
Research Shows Obesity is Expensive, as Well as Dangerous
New research shows that being obese is not only dangerous to health, but also expensive, according to MSNBC. The research results said that medical spending is about $1,400 more a year for obese people than normal weight people, according to the report. And health spending is $147 billion for obesity related health, compared to half that 10 years ago.
According to the study by research group RTI International, these prices reflect the cost of treating diabetes, heart disease, and other problems associated with obese patients.
Facts about obesity costs (Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (Research by Finkelstein, Fiebelkorn, and Wang, 2003):
- costs now account for 9.1% of all medical spending ($92.6 billion in 2002 dollars)
- this is an increase from 6.5% in 1998
- half of these costs were paid by Medicaid and Medicare
Increase in health spending
The MSNBC report said that health economists have told legislators that obesity is the cause of the increase in health spending. The report cites diabetes as one example of this—diabetes costs the country $190 billion a year to treat, and being overweight is a risk factor for developing diabetes.
About a third of adult Americans are obese, and the obesity rate rose 37 percent between 1998 and 2006, said the MSNBC report. Medicare spends about $600 more per year on prescriptions for an obese patient than a normal-weight one.
Economic consequences of obesity
- People who are obese and their associated health problems have a significant economic impact on the U.S. health care system, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.
- According to the CDC, researchers Wolf and Colditz showed that medical costs from being overweight and obese involve two types of costs.
- Direct medical costs are preventive, diagnostic, and treatment services that are related to obesity.
- Indirect costs have to do with morbidity costs such as the value of income lost from decreased productivity or restricted activity.
- Mortality costs are the value of future income that is lost due to premature death.
Estimated State Costs of Obesity:
- estimated state costs ranged from $87 million (Wyoming) to $7.7 billion (California)
- Medicare estimates range from $15 million (Wyoming) to $1.7 billion (California)
- Medicaid expenditures range from $23 million (Wyoming) to $3.5 billion (New York)
- (The state differences in obesity costs are partly due to differences in the size of each state's population)
Kiley Law Group located in Boston and Andover, Massachusetts takes time when speaking with you about your case and works with you on a contingent basis so there are NO FEES unless our trained Boston child injury lawyers wins your case.
