Lets all watch our weight and regardless what health plan comes along we will be better off.

So would your plan to keep obese people from driving up your health care costs be to send obese people to government sponsored training programs to force them to lose weight or put a surtax on their health insurance? How about people who ride motorcycles? Or parents who knowingly give birth to a child who is going to have a condition that requires above average medical care? Do we make every pregnant woman undergo amniocentesis and if her expected child has birth defects, give her the option of having a paid for abortion or assuming the child's medical expenses herself if she gives birth? That would certainly save a lot of money. An abortion is far cheaper than paying the medical costs for a physically or medically challenged child. Obese people are the current scapegoats in our society. Get everybody thin, and we will chose something else to scapegoat. Be careful because what we chose may be something that you are. For the record, my family's genes have made it easy for me to be "normal weight". But I lost both my thin parents to smoking-induced lung cancer. Their medical bills were high, and both were on Medicare. I wonder if my mom paid enough in cigarette taxes to cover both her and my dad's medical bills since she was the only one who smoked.

Which is why it's ridiculous to pretend that we can get our healthcare costs down to those of single payer countries, because they do not have the obesity rates that we do in this country.

Don't forget that obese are more vulnerable to swine flu

I like the diversity of offerings on this site. Slate has something up today that oddly asserts that obesity does not cost more because obese people die sooner. they offer no proof and their theme flies in the face of the fact that to keep an obese person on dialysis for years is less cost effective than a person of normal weight who lives to be 90.

I like the Lab and Stats part of this place.