OT: I saw this and I cried. THAT POOR THING!

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/georgia-davis-835-pound-cut-out-of-house-obese-teen-uk_n_1546280.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D164532

This girl breaks my heart.

They had a show on TLC called "Half-Ton Mom" about a woman that weighed almost 900 lbs at the age of 29. It chronicled her journey to WLS. She got denied for about 12 years before a surgeon in Houston agreed to take her case. She was the heaviest woman to undergo WLS. Unfortunately, she passed away two weeks after surgery. :(

Those kinds of cases really breaks my heart. You'd think that with the soaring costs of health care, the insurance companies would try to help people get WLS instead of making them jump through hoops. It's less costly in the long run (for them and us).

They USED to believe that it was cheaper to provide weight loss surgery than pay for long-term comorbidities. However, after long-term results of WLS accrued, actuaries then "crunched the numbers" and realized that it is actually cheaper to let obese people die. When you provide corrective surgery, you extend the life of the individual, therefore they are on the insurance rolls for a much longer period of time. In the end, it was a wash and letting people die from obesity-related disease saves the insurance companies money.

It's harsh and rather awful to see lives given a monetary value, but insurance is a business of risk; it isn't a charity.

That just gives me more reasons to hate insurance companies.

Yeah that is sad. Even weirder is the story on that page about the chef serving his own genitalia. YUCK!!

What made me sick is that the press was quoted as naming her Europe's Fattest Teen, or something like that.

How dare they? It may be true, but is that kind of label really necessary?

I heard about that. I felt so bad for her. She had gone to Wellspring a few years ago to lose weight but has gained back plus some. She has to take care of her ailing mother and her father has cancer. This girl has no life. No support. It sounds like she needs to get out of that house and get in control of her own life. Her mom is going to have to have a nurse come to her home. This young girl cannot be her nurse. She is going to comfort herself with food since there is no one there for her. I would never ask my young daughter to take care of me. I would rather die. That is a terrible burden to put on a child. She should be out living her young life, coming into her own, and not having such a burden on her shoulders at such a young age.