I’ve often seen this take on this site and it’s a problematic one.
On one hand, I understand it. Obesity is one of the biggest contributors to other health conditions, and thus higher costs of care. But this isn’t like an insurance client picking an expensive red sports car or even smoking.
My concern is if you start doing that, without also giving people adequate resources to get healthy, you might have a ton of unintended consequences like people taking apart of dangerous crash diets or abusing drugs like Ozempic.
People are already abusing Ozempic and doing dangerous crash diets.
It would be pretty easy to tell people "get on a path and hit milestones on weight or your rates will go up." Maybe that's tough love, but what's being done now doesn't work, period. Doctors just stick people on endless prescriptions so that they can continue to live as fat slobs without making significant changes to what is causing their poor health. Car insurance insurance is rated based off of track record (eg making poor decisions that increase your risk as a driver to cause significant financial harm, etc). Why should health care not be the same (for controllable issues)?
What's funny though is that our local White Wakanda Safeway has all the shit, poisoned food just like a Safeway in Salem would have. And yet obesity is non existent among the client base? Why is that?
I’m concerned that approach might just lead to more uninsured people if they can’t hit these milestones. But it might be worth a shot, because as you say, what society is doing now isn’t working.
And compliance/cutting off coverage isn’t unheard of - sleep apnea patients have breathing devices with tracking to make sure they’re being used, for example.
But as I said before, in order for that to have any shot of long term success, you need to give people support or at least something to kickstart them. Drug addicts get to go rehab - that’s covered by insurance usually, but is their something comparable for obese patients?
You could also have it be “I won the genetic lottery!” - there are lots skinny people who eat some garbage food and look great. Hell, my grandfather ate super rich food, drank like a fish and smoked and didn’t have any weight issues until he was in his seventies. And at that point he was all IDGAF.
Converse is of course true. Some people are living in perpetual severe caloric deficits and the scale won’t budge - see Oprah Winfrey. She’s rich as fuck and has a long history of struggling with weight.
There's no doubt that humans vary metabolically with regards to how easy it is to lose or gain weight and I can't begin to make sense of it.
I definitely won the genetic lottery here, except for my pencil arms that you've made fun of to my face!
If I cut out beer for month during ski season (burns lots of calories) I could drop 5 or 10 lbs like that.
That said, it's still my understanding is that if you're in severe caloric deficit (say 1000 cal per day) over an extended period eventually pounds will come off. It's just that such an experience is miserable. Who wants to feel like they are starving to death in a gulag in Siberia every day?
Comments
Originally I placed it in the Tug, and you said you wouldn't mind hosting it as long as it didn't get too Tug-related. So I moved it into the Shoppe.
I’ve often seen this take on this site and it’s a problematic one.
On one hand, I understand it. Obesity is one of the biggest contributors to other health conditions, and thus higher costs of care. But this isn’t like an insurance client picking an expensive red sports car or even smoking.
My concern is if you start doing that, without also giving people adequate resources to get healthy, you might have a ton of unintended consequences like people taking apart of dangerous crash diets or abusing drugs like Ozempic.
I didn’t have an issue with it. A couple of folks in this thread had mentioned that it’s the type of thread where finding the right home is tricky.
People are already abusing Ozempic and doing dangerous crash diets.
It would be pretty easy to tell people "get on a path and hit milestones on weight or your rates will go up." Maybe that's tough love, but what's being done now doesn't work, period. Doctors just stick people on endless prescriptions so that they can continue to live as fat slobs without making significant changes to what is causing their poor health. Car insurance insurance is rated based off of track record (eg making poor decisions that increase your risk as a driver to cause significant financial harm, etc). Why should health care not be the same (for controllable issues)?
Ozempic is the latest card trick from big Pharma to pump up earnings
Health insurance is truly another subject because it is so heavily regulated and has all sorts of must covers
It has nothing in common with a real insurance pool
Obamacare didn't change Healthcare it changed insurance
Not for the better
What's funny though is that our local White Wakanda Safeway has all the shit, poisoned food just like a Safeway in Salem would have. And yet obesity is non existent among the client base? Why is that?
We already factor in higher risk factors into other markets- e.g., credit scores, auto/life/home insurance, etc.
There's no question that obesity and Type II diabetes are costing the US economy billions (maybe over a trillion) per year.
I just don't know the solution of how to use government carrots and stick vis-a-vis obesity.
Time to petition for the tagline of this board to be "Being poor isn't an excuse"
I’m concerned that approach might just lead to more uninsured people if they can’t hit these milestones. But it might be worth a shot, because as you say, what society is doing now isn’t working.
And compliance/cutting off coverage isn’t unheard of - sleep apnea patients have breathing devices with tracking to make sure they’re being used, for example.
But as I said before, in order for that to have any shot of long term success, you need to give people support or at least something to kickstart them. Drug addicts get to go rehab - that’s covered by insurance usually, but is their something comparable for obese patients?
You could also have it be “I won the genetic lottery!” - there are lots skinny people who eat some garbage food and look great. Hell, my grandfather ate super rich food, drank like a fish and smoked and didn’t have any weight issues until he was in his seventies. And at that point he was all IDGAF.
Converse is of course true. Some people are living in perpetual severe caloric deficits and the scale won’t budge - see Oprah Winfrey. She’s rich as fuck and has a long history of struggling with weight.
That's more than fair, and true.
There's no doubt that humans vary metabolically with regards to how easy it is to lose or gain weight and I can't begin to make sense of it.
I definitely won the genetic lottery here, except for my pencil arms that you've made fun of to my face!
If I cut out beer for month during ski season (burns lots of calories) I could drop 5 or 10 lbs like that.
That said, it's still my understanding is that if you're in severe caloric deficit (say 1000 cal per day) over an extended period eventually pounds will come off. It's just that such an experience is miserable. Who wants to feel like they are starving to death in a gulag in Siberia every day?