Who hurts the US Healthcare system worse?

Betcha more people die from smoking. Or drinking.A smoking and drinking fatso though, they're fucked.

True, at least in some fashion, but probably a bit misleading.From the American Diabetes Association:
http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/diabetes-myths/

quote:

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Myth: Eating too much sugar causes diabetes.

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Fact: The answer is not so simple. Type 1 diabetes is caused by genetics and unknown factors that trigger the onset of the disease; type 2 diabetes is caused by genetics and lifestyle factors.

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Being overweight does increase your risk for developing type 2 diabetes, and a diet high in calories from any source contributes to weight gain. Research has shown that drinking sugary drinks is linked to type 2 diabetes.

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I think it is fair to say that being overweight is not 'The' cause, because heredity factors are involved. However being overweight is a risk factor.

There's no medically-coherent definition of "overweight" or "obese." For instance, look at this BMI-defined-obese fat fatty:Being obese doesn't mean being unhealthy; body fat isn't a proxy for health. I thought we covered this already.

I note that in your anecdote that your wife's tuition was less than half of her school loan. That kind depends on what you think a student's standard of living ought to be. I wouldn't give my kids 25k per year while they were attending school. I understand that graduate and medical students don't want to live like undergraduates. I'm not so sure why we should not expect them to.My own experience while attending law school is that some of my contemporaries were piling up 100-150k of debt during a three year period. Tuition at the time was chewing up something less than 50k for the three years at some of the better law schools.When I attended grad school after leaving the military, I did live like a refugee in order to make ends meet without working. I didn't incur any debt. Perhaps people don't do that anymore.I'm not really challenging crashfrog's idea that medical school is too expensive, although I'm not all that sympathetic to his issues with unpaid internships.

You got paid to go to graduate school, either by an assistantship or the GI Bill. Yes, a lot of people don't "do that" anymore because a lot of people have to pay to go to graduate school, now. An MFA or a PhD in the humanities costs money, they don't give you money.

Being obese is risky health behavior. That's not the samething as saying the obesity is a proxy for health. I am not going to argue that BMI is a perfect indicator of obesity.Is it your opinion that the American Diabetic Association is wrong about obesity being a risk factor for type 1 and 2 diabetes? If not, then I don't understand your point.

* not well researched *Edited by NoNukes, : deleted

So no source for you 1/3 claim. Didn't think there was.Did you read what I wrote? Either that or you cannot do basic math.
25k tuition and fees per year. 4 years of medical school.4 x 25 = 100Loans $165k. I said over 150k. How the hell do you get that to equate to tuition being 1/2 of loans? You do not seem to be real good at this percentage thing. But what % of their total living expenses were provided by you or by employment they had? Was their primary residence still your home? You do understand there is a huge difference between undergrad and graduate students don't you. Aren't you special. 25k is not exorbitant as you said in an earlier post.

I guess it can be a bit misleading, but it's quite easy to determine if someone is overweight by checking their body fat and overall weight.Sure, exceptions are made for Shane Carwin of the UFC, but I'm also thinking his body fat percentage is very low. Also, that body size can be a health risk too. His heart may be working overtime to pump blood to all those muscles, especially during his fights. That's why he sucks after the first round. We may have, but it still doesn't mean you were right.Being obese is a major health factor. Having high body fat is one too. Any medical doctor will agree with that.- Oni

Not really. The skinny and well exercised 75 year old with leukemia is more of a burden than the 25 year old fat kid with no health problems. The fact of the matter is that no matter how well you take care of yourself you will probably still need very expensive care towards the end of your life. If being overweight doesn't get you, old age will. Does a guy who dies a 55 from a massive coronary cost more than a skinny 90 year old that took care of himself who has been fighting lupus for 10 years? No, he doesn't. I think you could make an argument that it is irresponsible, but we live in a free country where irresponsible is not illegal. I think it would be immoral to dole out health care based on whether or not you are obese. You might as well blame people for having a low income so that other high income earners have to support them. Should we also ban poor people from hospitals because they are a burden on the system?

Is this the right comparison? The older person who was once the 25 year old fat kid is probably statistically more likely to be a health problem. I think you could make the argument that a person who makes legal choices to be unhealthy is acting immorally. While it would be immoral to deny such a person health care, a different question is whether it would be immoral to make such a person pay more for his/her care? We do ration health care to poor people. Perhaps that is immoral, but isn't a poor person is going to get care that will simply make his condition stable?

Well I guess in that example specifically it's not. But I'm not convinced that's the norm. I also said I excluded those over 65 as they have their own healthcare system.Now, as crash pointed out, the letter the MD wrote does relate to seniors as they are more of a burden on medicare than poor people. His point I agreed with.But, UNDER 65 - where one isn't at the end of their life for the most part, it seems to me that the biggest users of healthcare are those who don't take care of their health. Those who are overweight, eat junk food, don't exercise, and possible, to add to those horrible life choices, smokes too. I don't think I said anything about banning anyone. More so, my point is one of awareness and cultural change. I would support a banning on fast food places and the manufacturing of junk food though.But to somewhat cover your point, I wouldn't support giving someone who doesn't want to work welfare or any thing like that. Someone who IS out looking for work and isn't finding one, however, I would help out or support a system that helps them out.- Oni

No, it's not. Eating poorly is risky health behavior. Being inactive is risky health behavior. But it's possible to eat heathily and have a healthy active lifestyle and still be obese.Obesity is not a proxy for health.

Short of dissection, how do you check someone's body fat, Oni? No, look, you're just flat-out wrong about this. Obesity is associated with a number of co-morbidities but that's just a word that means "fat people frequently have these other conditions, too." It doesn't mean that they're caused by obesity. Being obese doesn't inherently make you unhealthy. A number of unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits tend to cause obesity, but it's possible to have very healthy eating habits, a healthy active lifestyle, and still be obese due to differences in metabolism, how efficiently the body uses calories and extracts them from food, and so on. And under those conditions there's little to no association with health effects at all.Weight isn't a proxy for health; you can't just look at someone and know how healthy they are. For that matter, you can't just look at someone and know their body fat content.

It is still a healthcare system that we are paying into with tax money, just as with Medicaid. I don't know if this is completely true. I would actually be interested in seeing the statistics. I know a guy who was in awesome shape, ate right, all that stuff, and then he developed MS. He is probably going to be on life long disability, and he is just 35. I think it is more than fair to say that fit people have lower rates of disease, but just how much of a burden is it? I would also suspect that the majority of smoking related disease occurs after the age of 65.If people don't succumb to disease related to obesity or smoking, they will still probably succumb to some disease that requires a lot of money. Whether someone gets lung cancer at 55 from smoking or prostate cancer at 85 from just being old, the cost is the same. At some point we have to put responsibility in people's hands. The prohibition on alcohol and weed didn't work, so how do you think a prohibition on sugar and fat is going to work? If you ban bacon people will be after you with torches and pitchforks, and I may be leading the mob. So what do we do when they show up at the emergency room with an actual emergency? As of now, we do not allow hosptials to deny care to people in emergency rooms. Can you imagine if we DID run hospitals with the requirement that you have to have insurance in order to be admitted to the emergency room? People would be dying for no other reason than not having insurance.What happens when people without insurance and without income can not pay their emergency room bills? That cost gets passed on to us, the people who do pay for health insurance. We would be better off giving people the basic insurance they need without charge so that they can go to a primary doctor at a fraction of the cost. That's the harsh reality of the whole thing. We can talk about fairness, but we also need to be pragmatic about this.