[longride]

Lay off helmets and start here:

WASHINGTON - The fatter people get, the more their health insurance costs go up, a study finds.

To counter that, some employers are encouraging their workers to exercise and diet.

"Every pound you put on is important. Even one pound more," said Dee W. Edington, director of the University of Michigan's Health Management Research Center.

Edington and his colleagues found overweight and obese people have medical bills up to $1,500 greater a year than those of people of healthy weight.

Medical costs rose as weight did, said the report in the January-February issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion. The average cost for those of average weight was $2,225. The lowest category of overweight was slightly more, at $2,388, but costs rose more sharply after that, reaching $3,753 for the fattest people.

The finding is in line with a report by the U.S. Surgeon General, which estimated the economic cost of obesity in 2000 at $117 billion. And it comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) documents a rising level of weight gain. The worst fatness — extreme or morbid obesity — nearly tripled among adults between 1988 and 2000.

Now I gave Senator Hurt somthing else to chew on.

 

[jmeyn]

It wasn't the AMA that made him back down...

It was longride.

Congratulations longride!

 

[rsheidler]

I was the one who submitted the first article which MO posted on this topic, and I was as outraged as anyone here. However, in retrospect, particularly after reading some of Dr Hurt's responses to those who e-mailed (often somewhat less than politely worded) messages to him, I have moderated my views somewhat.



Dr Hurt seems to be a very reasonable man, who does not have any specific animosity to motorcyclists.



Clearly this bill had no chance of passing, and even if it somehow were to pass, no chance of withstanding jusicial review.



In submitting the bill, it appears that Dr Hurt was making a symbolic gesture -- making a political statement. His point about the societal cost of unnecessary head injuries is a valid one (although he apparently has made no effort to quantify the extent to which this is caused/aided by helmetless riders, vs, say skiers and snowboarders, bicyclists, mountain climbers, industrial injuries, auto accidents etc).



In a lot of ways, his bill was similar to an inflamatory, flame-bait post such as occassionally gets posted here (I might have posted one or two myself). It stirs up a lot of discussion, and at least gets the topic noticed.



The fact that the AMA, MO and other sites gave this the amount of attention we did simply gave Dr Hurt a much larger audience for his message.



If, as a result, some motorcyclists actually make a conscious assessment of the risks when deciding whether to wear a helmet, or dicide to sign an organ donor card, there could be some lives saved. Not a bad result.



Cheers

Bob