From Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason (print edition):
West Virginia taxpayers may soon be paying for portly citizens to attend Weight Watchers meetings. The state claims it’s spending $100 million a year on obesity-related health care. Now, in an effort to reduce those costs, the state’s largest Medicaid provider—UniCare, a subsidiary of Wellpoint—will pony up for 16 weeks of subsidized Weight Watchers services. Wellpoint intends to establish similar payouts in 14 other states.
Unfortunately, the change in unlikely to help the bottom line. Tennessee tried a similar plan last year and boasted that the 1,400 subsidized participants lost 8000 pounds collectively. That may sound good, but it averages out to a little less than six pounds per person—not enough to make a difference in health care costs or the lives of the obese people the plan is supposed to help.
This isn’t the first time West Virginia has dipped into the state coffers to encourage dieting. In 2003 it erected billboards proclaiming “Biggie Fries = Biggie Thighs.” No statewide reductions in thigh circumference have been reported.
The one saving grace here is that the program is not (as yet) mandatory—though those of us with a healthy distrust of social engineering can spot the glint off a far off slippery slope when we see it.
Apart from the spending of taxpayer monies to subsidize Fat Camp for West Virginians who’ve let themselves get a little to rotund (eating less, last I checked, was free—while a couple gallon milk jugs and a dirt path can work for weight training and cardiovascular exercise in a pinch), the less obvious concern here is that states may one day require “obese” people receiving state-subsidized medical insurance to undertake various programs as a condition of their coverage.
And as with obesity being defined ever-downward, the specter of “activist” scientists influencing state programs seems likely—meaning that the state could soon be in the business of demanding human guinea pigs in exchange for health care coverage.
Now imagine this on a national scale—with, say, Hillary Care. If Al Gore’s very public crusade can influence SCOTUS decisions on Global Warming and regulation through junks science alarmism, how frightening is it to free people to imagine that they may one day be “asked” to perform morning jumping jacks or breakfast on a fig bar in order to keep their health insurance?
Time for me to go lift. Before the JACKBOOTS ARRIVE AND MAKE ME DO PILATES!
I’m currently selling “flab offsets”. For 100 bucks I’ll run a couple laps while the payor continues to enjoy the couch lifestyle with all its cakes and pies.
My organization? Lean Peace
Dammit, here I am losing weight all on my own without a subsidy or a threat of jail time or anything.
I always did have lousy timing.
I’m gaining weight, but it’s a dry fat. So.
Needs a link to the Penn & Teller “BULLSHIT!” episode on Obesity/BMI:
Click
So if I ride my bike to work, I can claim the carbon credit AND the carbo-credit?
RAWK!
Unfortunately you will have to buy fashion offsets from the fashion mafia for wearing those biking shorts. Tsk, tsk.
I see a few problems with this:
1) If you don’t want to lose weight, you’re not going to, no matter who foots the bill.
2) People who don’t want to lose weight but are there under orders are going to be a detriment to the ones who really want to be there.
3) There are more ways to lose weight than Weight Watchers, and everyone responds differently to each of them. Even Weight Watchers has two different programs.
4) Sixteen weeks is just the start. I’d expect someone who’s been going to WW for sixteen weeks to have a total weight loss of 10-25 pounds. If you’re really good at sticking to the program (or really heavy to begin with), you’ll lose more, but still not enough to really get past obesity.
I think a better idea—if they have to get all nanny-statish about this—is to reimburse the meeting/membership fees whenever the person loses another 10% of their initial weight. This way the person has to show some progress, and has an incentive to actually commit to the program.
I hit 10% down after 13 weeks; I hit the second 10% down after 32 weeks; the timing works out roughly the same, and you’d be giving the dieter a reason to commit enough to hit the goals.
I’d never see the need to reimburse for program-branded food. You can eat well enough from the normal grocery store without springing for WW brand snacks or pre-packaged meals.
The problem is, we aren’t on a slippery slope, we are near terminal velocity on a greased amusement park slide. Not just in terms of the incidence and prevalence of diabetes (skyrocketing) but also in terms of the nature of healthcare and the ever growing entitlement society.
Right now the States, funded by the Feds, spend hundreds of dollars per-patient-per-month on medications for the treatment of type II diabetes (the fat people kind.) Go out and price one month supplies of medications such as Avandia, Actos, and Precose, or insulins such as Lantus, or Humalog. All are grossly expensive and none can ever cure the condition, only minimize the consequences.
Even worse they are almost never used individually, instead most are used concomitantly. Meaning that the direct cost of treating the disease (excluding the costs associated with treated the consequences of diabetes) are already quite large. And they will do nothing to reduce the prevalence of the disease.
Given the prevalence of Type II diabetes in the lower socio-economic strata, and the reality of Medicaid – much less the likelihood of full government healthcare, it is all but inevitable that the taxpaying public will continue to bear the financial burdens of treatment.
Consider that some people (some – not all) can significantly reduced the consequences of, if not outright eliminate the disease through proper diet and exercise – with or without accompanying weight loss. Doesn’t it make sense to at least try funding programs that focus on health promotion and disease elimination? At least as an alternative to the very costly route of prescription drugs?
Sure there need to be limits, and controls. Some people won’t even make the initial effort, and among those who do those people who don’t show positive clinical improvement will need to be transitioned to other forms of treatment anyway.
But citing an ‘average weight loss of six pounds’ totally ignores the possibility that that result may actually represent significant weight loss among a few patients – weight loss that may have effectively eliminated, or at least controlled the patients diabetes to the point where drug therapy was reduced or no longer necessary.
The reality is, based on our current politics, we are never going to deny people medical treatment based on their poor decision making skills. I work with a significant portion of low income diabetics. Some truly are ignorant about the nature of their disease and how their poor lifestyle adversely impacts their health, and yes only a few of those would ever positively respond to an approach geared towards diet and exercise. But those small numbers are still real individuals – ones you are going to pay for anyway.
Yes, another reality is that far too many just want the simple solution (’gimme a pill’
– no matter how much you explain the downside. Again, you are still at square one.
But for those few who will respond positively the net result is not only cheaper, but more importantly a truly better and more healthful method of treating their condition.
Never?
I accept your challenge, sir! Given how perverse I find the phrase “epidemic obesity among the poor” to be, I think I’ll be happy pushing this rope than that other one.
No more frightening than the already established “Nanny-isms” that are already in place.
So far, Mayor Mike (Bloomfield) appears to be the Mother Of All Nannies. As far as I can see, “nanny-ism” is a euphemism for “arrogant, elitist pricks”. Don’t we just love it when people who have never even read the Constitution and have the IQ of a large pair of shoes, get to force their junk science conclusions on the rest of us?
Global warming? Schmucks that I know say that it is proven beyond a doubt that man-made CO2 is the cause of GW. Only problem is, I have yet to see one iota of evidence to support this statement.
If anything, the facts actually seem to point the other way. I’d be more likely to fall for Eugenics than GW>
America – Be all that you can be!
Yeah.
Right.
Seems more like: “Be all that ‘we who are superior’ tell you to be.”
Is it unconstitutional to install a nanny state?
SMITH, WINSTON 679! Touch your toes NOW!
No Schwarzenegger giving out badges to the athletic kids. It’s not like we’re asking people to get in shape, just to present as non-obese. We still have to be sure to point out wherever possible that healthy people probably cheated – you just can’t know without a blood test, and it’s so way easier for rich people to be thin anyway. The model citizen today is one that has attained the status of nonliability. Inspirational, that.
Hmmmm….
I guess we should ask the NYC city council, who are at this very moment working very hard to legally ban the “N” word.
BTW, what is this “Constitution”, anyway? I thought it was just a figment of my imagination.
Every day in every way I am getting somewhat less problematic and burdensome.
Live the dream.
Just checking, Lost Dog. I’m fairly certain that unless some bazillionaire special interest has an issue with its competition’s law-enabled unfair market advantage and mounts a SC suit, just about anything goes.
Legislators themselves, vote-whores one and all, are obviously irrecoverable. This WVA crew isn’t an exception to the rule. Their piece of garbage surely has some moneymaker behind it. Probably fat farms or something.
My question isn’t to the apparent gross unconstitutionality of many statutes. It’s to whether or not such crappy soccer mom legislation can be prevented beforehand. That might be the only solution to the inevitable.
I say we make it an offense to write stuff like this. Get caught on an unconstitutional bill or law and you’re out on your ear. Would tend to cut down on lawmaking. And hopefully, lawmakers.
If you’re big enough of an idiot to write what’s basically illegal law, you have no place in government.
Of course, my other fantasies—expiring every law in existence after a reasonable time, and putting lobbies out of business—don’t seem to have a lot of public appeal either…
Good Heavens! The first would lead to unprecidented amounts of the second
The teachers union in West Virginia should wake up before it’s too late and install elements of the “Fat Studies” curriculum in the schools from K-12. It’s never too early to fight this oppression and never too early to indoctrinate future voting victims.
Lovely, isn’t it? Lawmakers concentrating on making sure the existing stuff makes sense AND having no time for the payola.
Might result in a libertarian constitutional republic if we’re not careful. Or ethical lawmakers.
Public servants! Even honest lawyers!
I’ll leave that to the lawyers—but I’m pretty sure it would void your warranty.
I’m not sure how WW is organized, but if there’s a state organization in WV, then I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re behind it.
On the other hand, the “you won’t lose weight unless you want to” is straight out of the WW material, so unless they’re just trying to milk the state, they must know it won’t help.
Time to prohibit for-profit special legislation as well. How about a fine for those who abuse law like this?
I don’t think the majority of Americans realize just how fragile and tenuous the legislation process is, and how the legislature has become a mob-ruled slop trough. Or how chronic litigation is a plan, not a recourse.
In other words, bad laws pay. And how many of your and my legislators are lawyers?
I swear, on any given Tuesday half a state could be outlawed if the other half just showed up and threatened to evict their representatives. Perhaps the best example of this is the new Democrat majority, talking out both sides of their mouths, desperate to appear unhinged to moonbats and sane to moderates all at the same time.
That’s “Robert C. Byrd Fat Camp for West Virginians”, boy.
So long as it’s not “The John Cole Fat Camp for Thinking Conservatives,” I’m cool.
Bwaaahaaahaa. Oh, man, my ribs…
That one hurt, Jeff.
Sounds to me like a bunch of little babies, to stupid to see that this program might indeed help some people, even if it helps only a few, it’s worth it!
Thanks for putting this up online. Your blog rocks and mine sucks by comparison but its still cool.