What does obesity cost?

The national bill just for providing obesity-related health services for the severely obese is $69 billion a year, researchers reported in this month's Health Affairs. You can view the abstract here.

By the way, severe obesity starts at a Body Mass Index of 35 or about 204 pounds for a person who is 5-foot-4.

The cost to the Medicaid program is $8-billion, authors write, and you can expect that  to increase as Medicaid grows under the Affordable Care Act.

Hard to wrap your mind around that much money?

The researchers helpfully broke down the cost of obesity-attributable health care on a per-resident basis for every state.

The tab is $585 per person in New Jersey, where 32 percent of the population is obese, and $608 per person in Pennsylvania, where 36 percent of residents are in that category. Delaware, also at a 36 percent obesity rate, bears the highest cost in the area: $754 per person.

The researchers said their analysis was not intended to suggest too much money is being spent on caring for the obese. Rather, it should prompt a look at how the money is spent and whether the right kind of care is being provided. Otherwise, the problem will only get worse, study coauthor Michael Long, of George Washington University, says in this story about the report.

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