Obese Pregnant Women More Likely to Use Healthcare Services
“For instance, for prenatal visits with a physician, normal women had an average of about four visits, while very obese and extremely obese women had five and six visits. The primary reasons for the increased utilization of these services were increases in Caesarean section and obesity-related high risk conditions. Caesarean delivery rates were 45.2 percent for extremely obese women, compared to 21.3 percent for normal weight women.”
Here’s something that I’d appreciate having explained to me: the majority of US citizens are not on any kind of state or federal healthcare plan. I’d say around 80% are on some kind of group insurance plan via their employers where the healthcare is managed through a private company. And yes, excess and unnecessary use of healthcare does drive up the costs for everyone on that group plan. But how would that raise costs for taxpayers, if it’s not funded by taxes in the first place? Seriously, what am I missing here? I’m well aware that there’s a huge problem with people who don’t get insurance at all because a job pays too much for aid, but is too cheap/too small/too part-time to offer coverage benefits, but I’d still pinpoint those individuals as less than 20% of the total healthcare system. So either A, I’m missing some information or B, this “strain” on the healthcare system is about something that has nothing to do with strain – such as corporate profit for the companies that supply weight loss drugs and other equipment to hospitals.
