Recent headlines from Britain show yet another attempt to tackle that country’s obesity epidemic.  Faced with ever rising health care costs associated with obesity related health issues, they are giving parents of obese children the opportunity of sending their kids to “fat camp“. 

They are doing this because they have faced the harsh reality of the obesity related costs to having a public option for the populous. Should the public option become a reality for the US, we can expect the same issues that the UK is now facing. 

In part 1 of this series, the current impact obesity related heath issues have on our medical industry was detailed as well as what issues are considered ‘obesity related’.  As it stands now, the majority of the US population is under private health insurance.  What impact have these obesity related issues had on the costs we currently pay?

First, let’s take a look at the rate that health insurance has increase for employers over the last decade.  Over this time, health insurance premiums have jumped over 119%. 

The cumulative increase in employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have raised at four times the rate of inflation and wage increases during last decade.  (source)

In 1991, no state had an obesity rate over 20%.  Now, there are 31 states that exceed 25% obesity rates and 49 states (and D.C.) exceed the 20% mark.  As stated in part 1 of this series, the average medical expenditure for an obese person is $1429 per year more than a non-obese person.  Given that obesity rates grew at a rate of 37% over the past decade coupled with the extra expenditure incurred by obesity related issues, it becomes painfully obvious that the obesity epidemic is a major player in the rising health care costs overall.

So what does that mean?  While the government currently faces these challenges on a smaller scale with Medicare and Medicaid, the playing field gets expanded exponentially should a public option be put into play.  Currently, most employer based health care programs offer flat rates regardless of the employees’ weight even though this could be a deciding factor for insurance premium levels.  Most employers generally cover about 71% of the premiums (family) which means the cost for this employee benefit is quickly rising out of control.

Should this trend continue, how long will it be before it becomes non-cost effective to continue to offer the same level of insurance coverage?  Obviously, that is impossible to gage but logic tells us there must be a breaking point.  The employer coverage of the health insurance premium will, in all likelihood, decrease which, in turn, cause the employee portion to increase putting the additional burden on the employee to cover the costs.  Or, in a worst case scenario, health benefits my cease to be offered by some.  Either way, there is no reduction in costs, to the employer or the employee, for the foreseeable future.

Enter the public option.  This option would, in all probability, be subsidized by taxpayer dollars and the fight against obesity shifts from your house to Washington.  We have already heard of new ’sin tax’ proposals to try to offset some of the costs we, the tax payers, are going to incur should this become a reality.  Will we also be asked to send our kids to government sponsored fat camp?  Is gastric bypass surgery, or lap bands, covered under the public option?  Should they be?

Given that this epidemic is growing by leaps and bounds, year after year, is it enough for the government to just refer to a “sin tax” or should we be demanding answers to questions concerning how they plan combat this problem?  This epidemic is caused by so many factors, how intrusive into our private lives would they have to be to truly control it?

If you have any comments, please feel free to post below!