Bulgaroctonus

I recognize your point about insurance rates being adjusted for risks. I'm currently doing research to find out exactly how obesity influences the economy and insurance premiums. This is what I have so far. More is coming...

This is from the Kansas Legislator
Briefing Book 2005 (http://skyways.lib.ks.us/ksleg/KLRD/...K-1Obesity.pdf)
How does an individual’s weight affect other people?

Obesity has consequences for not only the individual, but also for others in society such as employers, taxpayers and other users of the health care system. Costs can be direct medical expenditures (preventive, diagnostic and treatment services related to obesity) or they can be indirect (value of income lost from decreased productivity, restricted activity, absenteeism and bed days
(morbidity costs) and the value of future income lost by premature death (mortality costs)).

The following are some facts and figures about economic consequences of obesity:

1) Health care facilities see increased costs in caring for obese patients due to the need for special equipment (e.g., beds, wheelchairs, operating tables) and increased risk of injuries to workers
who take care of larger patients.

2) Obesity has been shown to increase disability rates as people age, ultimately raising the costs of health care and long-term care for these individuals.

3) Increased costs are passed on to others who use the health care system or who pay health insurance premiums that may be inflated by increased health care expenditures. In general, people who are healthy subsidize the costs of those who are less healthy and thus consume
more health care.

4) Employers and business also bear some of the costs through higher health insurance premiums due to increased health insurance costs, paid sick leave and lost productivity. A 1998 study found that obese employees take more sick leave and are twice as likely to have high-level absenteeism than non-obese employees.
National direct and indirect costs amount to more than $117 billion annually, about half of which is publicly funded through Medicaid and Medicare.
Recent estimates put the cost of obesity related direct medical expenditures in Kansas at $657 million per year or 5.5 percent of all medical expenditures. Of this amount, at least $143 million is estimated to be paid for by the Medicaid program (funded 40 percent by the state and 60 percent by the federal government).

Annual health care expenditures of non-elderly obese people have been shown to be approximately 36 percent higher than people of normal weight.
Sources: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Obesity Research journal