United States medical spending related to obesity has doubled in less than a decade and may now be as high as $147 billion per year, a new study sponsored by the federal government shows.
The study, conducted by researchers at RTI International, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, notes that between between 1998 and 2006, the prevalence of obesity (body mass index greater than 30) increased by 37 percent, from 18.3 percent to 25.1 percent of the population.
That increase, the study found, is the root of most of the jump in obesity-related spending. The average obese person incurs $1,429 more per year in medical costs, or 42 percent, than someone of normal weight, the study found. In the Medicare Part D prescription drug program alone, obese patients cost an extra $600 per year.
Overall, the researchers found, 9.1 percent of medical expenditures in 2006 were attributable to obesity, up from 6.5 percent in 1998. The impact was most pronounced on private-payer spending, with 12.9 percent linked to obesity; for Medicare and Medicaid, it was 8.5 percent and 11.8 percent, respectively.
But the costs aren’t tied to treating obesity directly, but rather to related diseases.
“Although bariatric surgery and other treatments for obesity are increasing in popularity, in actuality these treatments remain rare,” said Eric Finkelstein, director of RTI’s Public Health Economics Program and the study’s lead author. “As a result, the medical costs attributable to obesity are almost entirely a result of costs generated from treating the diseases that obesity promotes. Thus, obesity will continue to impose a significant burden on the health care system as long as the prevalence of obesity remains high.”
The study estimates that 80.4 percent of the increase in prescription drug spending between 1998 and 2006 was related to obesity, along with 45.5 percent of the growth in inpatient hospital spending and 26.9 percent of the growth in other medical spending.
The researchers also cite data from previous studies, including one that estimated the cost of treating diabetes at $190.5 billion per year. “Although not all of these costs are attributable to obesity, excess weight is the single greatest predictor of developing diabetes,” they wrote.
The study, which was funded by the CDC Foundation, was released last Monday at the “Weight of the Nation” conference, a three-day meeting of public health experts, policy leaders and researchers in Washington, D.C., geared to addressing the obesity epidemic.
The full text is available on the Health Affairs Web site.
