Americans are getting fatter and fatter and, as a result, taxpayers’ wallets are slimming dramatically – with a jaw-dropping $75 billion spent on obesity-related medical costs last year, a new study reveals.
And taxpayers pick up more than half of that tab – about $39 billion a year or about $175 per person – through Medicare and Medicaid programs.
“Obesity has become a crucial health problem for our nation, and these findings show that the medical costs alone reflect the significance of the challenge,” said Tommy Thompson, secretary of health and human services.
“Of course, the ultimate cost to Americans is measured in chronic disease and early death.”
The figures reveal that states spend about one-twentieth of their medical costs on obesity – from a low of 4 percent in Arizona to a high of 6.7 percent in Alaska.
California spends the most on health care for the obese, $7.7 billion, while Wyoming spends the least, $87 million.
New York state weighs in dramatically, with more than $6 billion spent to treat the dangerously overweight.
The enormous costs are broken down between what Medicaid and Medicare shell out – with Medicaid’s burden ranging from $23 million (Wyoming) to $3.5 billion (New York), and Medicare’s from $15 million (Wyoming) to $1.7 billion (California).
“We have a lot of taxpayers financing the costs of overweight and obesity for those in public sector health plans,” said Eric Finkelstein, a health economist with RTI International, which conducted the study for the Centers for Disease Control.
“That provides justification for governments to find cost-effective strategies to reduce the burdens of obesity.”
Nearly 64 percent of all adults in the United States are either overweight or obese, according to a federal survey.
And doctors are seeing increased numbers of patients with health problems due to fat.
“This report is alarming, given that obesity has been shown to promote many chronic diseases, including type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease and gall bladder disease,” said Julie Gerberding of the CDC.
“The long-term effects of obesity on our nation’s health and on our economy cannot be underestimated.”
The experts add that if Americans don’t immediately start changing their nutritional habits soon, the costs will just keep zooming.
Results of the new study are published in the upcoming issue of Obesity Research magazine.
HIGH COST OF OBESITY
Top 10 states with the fattest obesity bills (in billions)
1) California $7.675
2) New York $ 6.080
3) Texas $5.340
4) Pennsylvania $4.138
5) Florida $3.987
6) Illinois $3.439
7) Ohio $3.304
8) Michigan $2.931
9) New Jersey $2.342
10) North Carolina $2.138
The $75 billion of annual cost of obesity is equal to . . .
* The amount of equity capital lost in the wake of the 1929 stock market crash
* Double the national budget of the Philippines
* Four times what we spend annually importing crude oil from the Persian Gulf
* The amount President Bush requested from Congress for supplemental spending in fighting the war in Iraq, humanitarian relief and combating terrorism
* The total amount American girls, ages 10 to 19, spend every year