Copywritten by Stacey Zimmerman in 2006.
When it comes to health insurance, it seems like everyone is paying a lot. The quotes we receive show that the cost of health care has gone up. But if you are considered obese, your health insurance premiums may be much higher and some companies may even refuse to cover you. But if you lost weight, you could find much cheaper health insurance and have more choices.
Obesity is a fact, and health insurance companies have different rules about it. When a person's weight is outside of the normal range, they may not be able to get health insurance or they may have to pay more for it. Many insurance companies may even require an applicant to get a pre-approval physical before they will give them coverage. Obesity is expensive for insurance companies, so they have very strict rules about how much coverage people can get based on their weight.
Since it's very expensive to treat obese people, health insurance rates have gone through the roof in the past few years. Obesity is linked to a lot of other diseases, like heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes. The expensive treatments for these disorders are paid for by insurance companies. This is why they have strict rules about how much you can weigh. Each year, just one obese person can cost an insurance company thousands of dollars. Many people get their health insurance through their jobs. Since insurance premiums have gone up so much in the past few years, many employers, especially small ones, can no longer afford to cover their workers.
When a person is overweight, they usually have health problems and are often being tested and taking medication. This is an expense that the person could avoid if they lost weight. Research has shown that obese people have more health problems than people who aren't as fat. But this doesn't stop people from putting on weight.
More and more people are gaining weight and becoming obese. This includes children as well as adults. A recent study by The Thompson Corporation found that up to 16% of children in the United States could be diagnosed with obesity in 2004. When kids were treated for obesity, their health care costs were out of this world. The cost for each child who was covered by Medicaid was about $6,700 per year, and the cost for each obese child with private insurance was about $3,700 per year.
Even though obesity isn't entirely to blame for the rising cost of health insurance, it does put a strain on both society and the people who are obese. But health insurance costs will not stop going up, and neither will obesity. If a person who is overweight could lose weight, their health insurance premiums would be much lower and it would be much easier for them to get health insurance.
