What price care?

What price care? (USA Today 10.21.04)

Americans' extra weight costs as much as $93 billion in annual medical bills, and the government pays about half that amount, a study says.

Research released Wed-nesday reveals that medical bills for obese people accounted for 27% of the growth in overall health care spending from 1987 to 2001. The reasons: There are more obese people, and it's more expensive to treat them, says Ken Thorpe, a professor of health policy at Emory University in Atlanta. His study was published on the Health Affairs Web site.

In 2001, it cost an average of $1,000 more annually to treat an obese person than someone at a normal weight, mostly because of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol, he says.

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Damn it JC, You would have an extra $93 billion if you didn't have that extra weight... ;)