Question:
I want to argue (speech class) that insurance companies should pay
for the surgery instead of just the problems and consequences of obesity. I need some info--anybody got some good ammunition? Let me know here or you can email [email protected] !! — Kimberley E. (posted on January 30, 2004)
January 30, 2004
ohhhh i hope i don't offend anyone here, but these are just my own
thoughts...
i think that morbid obesity is an addiction, unless you have some medical
problem(which is rare) that causes you not just to gain weight but to
become MO. alot of people will say "i'm not addicted to food, i just
love to eat". i really feel in order to eat so much causing yourself
to become morbidly obeses is an addiction. the word addiction is defined as
: compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin,
nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined
physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use
of a substance known by the user to be harmful. the main reason alot of
these insurance companies ARE covering wls isn't because they are concerned
about your medical condition at the moment.....they know that if a person
is MO that it will cost them more in the long run to keep treating other
weight related issues over the persons lifetime. if insurance companies
were really really concerned about their overweight clients they would pay
for therapy that helped with the persons food addiction and supervised diet
plans. i'm not talking about weightwatchers or a family doctor type thing.
i mean intense treatment,maybe even inpatient treatment for addiction. wls
doesn't stop the emotional addictions to food and some people even regain
their weight(not meaning people with a failed surgery). with drugs you can
get treatment and stop taking them, but food is something you need to
survive. it's like giving an alcoholic a hole bottle of vodka and telling
them they must drink it 3 times a day, but only 1oz.
— franbvan
January 30, 2004
Hi,
I think the insurance people are using an inappropriate definition of
obesity, for one thing. They tend to think it is simply a matter of more
calories in than burned up. Like, eat too much; not enough exercise,
period. They do not consider genetics, metabolism, the person's
lifestyle, as in support system, network etc; self esteem; the social
stigma of being above-average in weight, especially females.
They tend to think it is just a behavior modification problem and that
anyone can lose weight if they just try harder. This shaming and guilting
of morbidly obese persons just ads to the stigma problem. They are, in
fact, using policies that reek of prejudice and judgmentalism, as far as I
am concerned.
Even though the National Institutes of Health and the American Medical
Association and the American Board of surgeons (or whatever it is) all
define morbid obesity as a disease, recognizing that obesity can cause or
exacerbate comorbidities (heart, sleep apnea, diabetes, arthritis,
hypertension, etc) which can be life-threatening, They don't understand
that the weight loss can alleviate or even cure some of these problems.
I realize that wls is risky, and insurance companies tend to emphasize the
risks over the benefits of the weight loss.
Since insurance companies are really thinking primarily in terms of dollar
signs, they don't seem to realize that wls could cost less than all the
complications of uncorrected morbid obesity.
Well, there's my soap box. Thanks. Hope it helps, and congratulations for
doing a speech on this subject. More people need to hear about
this--whether they want to or not.
Lauren Merryfield
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— catly
January 30, 2004
Kim, I wish I could remember where I saw the statistics (might have been on
CNN.com under "Health") about the costs of obesity. You might do
some searching and see if you can find the lifetime costs of diabetes,
arthritis, the cost of a knee replacement, heart disease, etc. Interesting
topic!
— koogy
February 1, 2004
When I first started looking into the surgery, I was informed that the
average length of time a consumer is with any particular insurance company
is two years, and that if the company does not feel they will come out
ahead (by lower benefit payments) within the two year span, they don't want
to pay. When we look at the cost of the surgery, it makes sense to us that
the almost immediate decrease in medication costs, increase in quality of
life, etc. makes it worth the initial output. Unfortunately, insurance
companies don't see it the way we do.
— Shelly M.
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