Craig Johnson at HLN wrote an article about the controversial health ads being put out by Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. The ads feature overweight children and teenagers and point out uncomfortable results of being fat: bullying, health problems, and doses of shame and stigma. The tagline: "Stop sugar-coating it." While supporters believe the in-your-face ads are necessary to force people to confront the obesity epidemic and its myriad of associated problems, critics claim that the ads hurt children by adding to the stigma associated with being overweight.
A few commenters insisted that being overweight and enjoying food was a right that should not be taken away by a heavy-handed government.
But isn't the obesity epidemic infringing upon everyone's rights by depriving us of our property, at least in regard to our earned dollars? Tax dollars going to treat and accommodate obese persons must come from our earned income. What is, therefore, the financial toll of obesity in the United States?
According to ABC News, the toll is quite hefty, with $147 billion in direct medical care going toward treating obese patients.
Medicare payments for prescription drugs for obese patients are approximately 70 percent higher than for non-obese patients. Medicare is supported by tax dollars.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly one-third of 3.7 million low-income preschool-age children were overweight, and almost 550,000 were obese. Many low-income children are partially supported by tax dollars.
Also according to the CDC, some 5.1 million men and 9.5 million women over the age of 20 were both obese and considered low-income, with income less than 130 percent of the poverty rate. Many of these individuals receive government support, including Medicare and Medicaid.
Lower-income individuals, report the CDC, are more likely to be overweight and obese.
An article in the Washington Post discusses the link between obesity among Medicare recipients and costly hospital readmissions, which can cost the government up to $12 billion per year.
Medpage Today reports that Medicare will now begin covering obesity screening and behavioral counseling, with up to 30 percent of Medicare beneficiaries qualifying for the benefit. Dr. Robert Eckel of the University of Colorado was skeptical of the new benefits, claiming that the counseling was unlikely to provide long-lasting changes to Medicare recipients' dietary and exercise behaviors and would cost "more money without proven benefit," reports News Medical.
With taxpayer dollars covering lots of obesity-related medical maladies, particularly among the low-income, it is clear that there is indeed a price tag associated with the obesity epidemic.
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