Health Care is a right

I think everybody should have access to quality health care. The one thing I think people should have to cover themselves would be diseases that they brought upon themselves (drug/alcohol abuse).

I think everybody should have access to quality health care. The one thing I think people should have to cover themselves would be diseases that they brought upon themselves (drug/alcohol abuse).

I think everybody should have access to quality health care. The one thing I think people should have to cover themselves would be diseases that they brought upon themselves (drug/alcohol abuse).

Growing obesity swells healthcare costs July 27, 2009

In the eight years leading up to 2006, the proportion of Americans weighing in as obese shot up 37%, fueling a $40-billion-a-year rise in healthcare costs, according to a new analysis of the nation's weight conducted under the direction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That added bill for the care of obese Americans -- equivalent to an annual expenditure of $1,429 more per person -- drove the nation's healthcare tab up fast and very steeply: while the extra care required for the severely overweight accounted for 6.1% of all medical spending in 1998, it accounted for 9.1% of total spending by 2006, the new study shows.
In the same period, the proportion of Americans with a Body Mass Index of 30 or above grew from 18.3% to 25%.
Most of that increase has come from the rise in treatment costs -- specifically for prescription-drug use -- for the obese. Medications used to treat obesity-related conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes accounted for the bulk of the increased bill. Treatment of diabetes, for instance, costs $191 billion annually.
"The connection between rising obesity and rising medical spending is undeniable," the authors of the study, published in the journal Health Affairs, concluded.