Ethical Issues Faced By Health Insurance Companies

The United States of America is the fattest country in the world. Obesity in America has reach epidemic proportions. Obesity and weight gain has become major concern of public health in the United States. In every state, at least twenty percent of adults are obese, and in twelve of these states the obesity rate is above thirty percent. Mississippi currently holds the highest rate of obesity with 34.9 percent of its residents being obese. On the contrary, Colorado has the lowest rate of obesity with 20.7 percent. CNN estimated that annual medical care costs due to obesity reached $147 billion, but the Institute of Medicine estimates it is closer to $190 billion.

About 40 to 50% of adults in America are at risk for diseases such as stroke, kidney failure, heart attack, heart failure and obesity. Most of these diseases are brought on by hypertension which is brought on by unhealthy eating choices, poor diet and little to no exercise which has devastating effects on the body. Approximately 7 out of 10 Americans is prescribed or takes a prescription pill daily, half of those are diet related illnesses such a diabetes and one third of those individuals is obese. Two trillion medical-care costs are because of chronic diseases most of which are lifestyle habits/choices. Obesity in America costs about taxpayers about $123 billion via Medicare and Medicaid. Now that obesity has risen at an alarming rate, in some cases obesity is considered a disability for those that are physically or mentally impaired by it. Debatably a preventable disease with proper education on food, diet and exercise

Obese- is becoming an “epidemic!” We have 44.3 million people that are either obese or over weight. In 1986, the numbers were at 1 in 2000, and they became 1 in 400 by the year 2000. Even our high school age students are at an all time high of 16% overweight and 10% obese. As that number keeps increasing, future projections for covering healthcare expenditures must figure in the obese-related

Managed Care is a system of health care in which patients agree to visit only certain doctor and hospitals, and in which the cost of treatment is monitored by a managing company. David, a clinical supervisor of one pad was responsible for the clinical supervision of eight clinical case managers. On typically day, he receives around 40 phone messages about clients that are in need of his services. His job is to field calls from mental health providers seeking authorization to provide treatment for clients. There are those who believe that managed care is simply another example of corporate America discovering a means to increase profits for shareholders of insurance companies, at the expense of individuals seeking mental health treatment. (pg.

The CDC’s fact sheet on obesity reports that in 1998 the medical costs associated with obesity cost Americans were estimated to be at least $78.5 billion annually; that figure nearly doubled in ten years to $147 billion annually in 2008. The fact sheet also cites that in 1998 18.3% of the overall adult population was reported as being obese; in 2008 that number

The modern-day epidemic of obesity in America is destroying lives and bankrupting the government. Reuters reports, “Obesity in America is now adding an astounding $190 billion to the annual national healthcare price tag” (Ungar 2012). This number is so high due to hospital costs and prescription drugs. The number even exceeds the medical costs due to smoking. Fortunately for the government, smokers die earlier and save the government money on things such as Social Security, private pensions and Medicare. (Ungar 2012) However, obese people tend to live almost as long as those who have a healthy weight and require more medical care throughout their lives, which costs the government substantial amounts of money.

In summary, the US obesity epidemic is exactly that, a chronic disease that has been ignored for so long that it is now at epidemic levels and growing exponentially. This national problem has been allowed to continue as a result of how private healthcare companies have historically performed their internal economic analyses done as part of their normal course of business. In the past, private healthcare has taken a per unit breakeven analysis, and determined (based solely on the financial impacts to their own company) that it was better to deny coverage for gastric surgery, and “promote” moving obese policy holders off the private healthcare company’s coverage. And once obese patients are removed from insurance coverage, private

Obesity is a very serious subject that a lot of people take lightly, especially us as Americans. America is the most obese country in the world. Statistics show that 300,000 people die a day in the United States of America due to obesity. This clearly shows that we have a serious problem that is massively underestimated. Obesity is also something that countries all across the world suffer from. For example, Australia is also one of the most obese countries in the world, and 50,000 people die a year from obesity in Australia. That’s 140 people who die per day in Australia. To solve the problem of obesity the prices of junk food should be raised and the prices of healthy food should be lowered and more convenient.

Obesity in the United States has really become an economic problem as well. People are spending the little money that they have and spending it on food that they shouldn’t be eating in the first place, which they should be spending their money on healthier and nutritious food, for themselves and their family. New England Medical Center, Michael Dansinger of the Tufts says:

“Today we have a health insurance industry where the first and foremost goal is to maximize profits for shareholders and CEOs, not to cover patients who have fallen ill or to compensate doctors and hospitals for their services. It is an industry that is increasingly concentrated and where Americans are paying more to receive less.” (Feinstein) Obese adults shouldn’t pay for higher premiums because it’s not equal everybody should pay the same amount of health care, the government shouldn’t be allowed to control  people 's lifestyles, and thin people can have as many diseases and health problems as obese people.

The trend of health care costs is still primarily based on treatment and less on prevention. Adult obesity is a significant cause of preventable chronic diseases and one cause of increased health care costs in the United States. The cost of obesity impacts each state and community. Adult obesity can be associated with chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, osteoarthritis, and some cancers, just to name a few, and account for more than 75 percent of U.S. health care cost. Currently, costs range from $147 billion to nearly $210 billion per year. If this trend continues, obesity-related medical costs alone could reach 66 billion a year by 2030.

It is scary to think about the epidemic obesity is and all the health complications that come with it. Health complications are expensive. I have heard time and time again, that we will see so many new cases of diabetes reported. There are many factors of course to someone being diagnosed with diabetes, but obesity is definitely one of the key reasons it is on the rise. It is also very expensive to have heart complications due to obesity. The trend for insurance companies is to pay less and less. I had one person tell me the best health insurance you have his your good health. I agree.

Though the healthcare costs would have risen naturally over the years, obesity has played a big part to the increase in costs. In 1990, the federal government spent about $107.9 billion on Medicare (about 8.8 percent of total expenditures) and $43.3 billion on Medicaid (about 3.5 percent of expenditures). By 2000, those numbers were doubled. By 2010, the federal government was spending almost $800 billion on Medicare and Medicaid (28.6 percent of expenditures) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2004.243/full . Medical costs for treating obesity-related diseases are expected to rise from $48 billion to $66 billion per year if the rate of obesity continues to increase at its current

Do you know what’s the number one cause of death in America? Well the number one cause of death is heart related diseases. Many of these heart related diseases are caused by obesity. Obesity is “the condition of being grossly fat or overweight.” It is not just being thick boned, or even hereditary. Obesity has become a growing epidemic around the world! A very colossal problem here in the untied states of America; What is sad is that it is a disease one has caused due to their own choice of life style.

Obesity has become a serious problem with more than one third of adults being obese in the United States. Obesity is seen as a self-destructive behavior accompanied with smoking and use of other drugs thus, government officials and other business bureaucrats expressed the need to impose higher health insurance premiums on the obese. Obesity is not always due to the personal behavior of people and can be linked with the environment and genetics; I personally feel that obese people should not pay a higher health insurance premium compared to those that aren’t. Government officials and other business bureaucrats