Cost of surgery offset!

On my way to work this morning I was listening to talk radio.  And they just mentioned weight loss surgery.  they said the top 2 weight loss surgeries RNY and Lapband that if you paid the cost yourself without insurance that the cost would offset after only 2 years from the savings of being obese.  I just thought that was a little cool information.  Hopefully I will hear from my insurance soon to see if they will approve my surgery or not.  This waiting sure is tough isnt it?  I dont think my fingers can afford anymore nails cause I keep on bitting them LOL!  I might have to have surgery for my nubs where my fingers use to be as well.  Hope everyone has a good day.

thanks,
Albert

Albert, I self paid to the tune of about $25,000 plus travel expenses. I justified spending the money  in the following manner, although you're to young to start thinking this way:
 
I can retire if I want to at age 52 and drag about $45,000 a year off of  the state of TX until I die. Without RNY, the chances that I'd get much more than 8 years of that retirement money were slim. With RNY, and a consious, concientious change in my lifestyle, I ought to live as long as my dad and grandfathers, which is to say mid to late 70's. The difference between dying at, to pick a couple of numbers, 60 as opposed to dying at 75 would cheat me and my family out of about $675,000 of retirement money. That's kinda the way I looked at it.

But I have no doubt that you could make, especially a lapband, pay for itself inside of two years. Reduced food costs, reduced medical costs for treating comorbidities, reduced clothing costs from having to upsize the wardrobe every year, reduced cost in not tearing up your furniture, etc. It all ads up.

I think there are too many variables to make a blanket statement like that.  I think some people who have been morbidly obese for a while do not change their style of clothing and are not going to see a big savings on clothes.  Quite the contrary, if you are losing weight, you are probably going to need new clothes.  Depending on your job, you may be able to get smaller sizes from Goodwill or you may need to still go to a good shop for your clothes.  As far as food costs go, that's another variable but it's probably tempered by whether you eat out often or not.  You may not be saving much on food initially since you may need a separate food plan from the rest of your family.  As to health issues, a lot of the health problems that go away with weight loss are also age related.  If you are younger, losing weight will probably allow you to live longer.  However, if you already have many health problems and are older, you may get a better quality of life and improve some of your conditions.  But, there are a lot of conditions that both morbid obese patients and thin people have.  Having WLS is not a guarantee that you will be free of those diseases.  Oh, some of us were already retired when we had WLS, so expected savings on future retirement benefits are non-existent.  Still, I think the WLS is worth it until science comes up with something better.