Weighing the costs of obesity: a brief review of the health care, workplace, and personal costs asSOCiated with obesity

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen C. Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Alex Rajczi

This book will ask whether universal health insurance systems are objectionable on the ground that they are inefficacious, fiscally risky, or require that individuals bear excessive personal costs. These issues are of serious philosophical interest, but there is also substantial evidence that opinions about fiscal risk, efficacy, and personal cost drive many Americans’ actual views on health care. This chapter surveys the polling data about these issues. The end of the chapter discusses the limitations of this evidence as well as alternative hypotheses about the drivers of the health care debate.


2007 ◽  
Vol 135 (8) ◽  
pp. 1290-1298 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. GAUCI ◽  
H. GILLES ◽  
S. O'BRIEN ◽  
J. MAMO ◽  
I. STABILE ◽  
...  

SUMMARYThe aim of this study was to estimate the burden of infectious intestinal disease (IID) and cost of illness at the community level from a societal aspect. A retrospective, age-stratified cross-sectional telephone study was carried out in Malta in 2004–2005. The number of cases, resources used and cost of resources were computed. The resources involved direct costs (health-care services, stool culture tests, medicines and personal costs) and indirect costs (costs from lost employment by cases and caregivers). This study estimated 0·421 (95% CI 0·092–0·771) separate episodes of IID per person per year in Malta which corresponds to 164 471 (95% CI 35 941–301 205) episodes of IID per year or 450 (95% CI 98–825) episodes of IID each day. The largest proportion of cost is due to provision of health-care services with €10 454 901 [Maltese liri (Lm) 4 558 970] per year; followed by €963 295 (Lm 2 209 393) in lost productivity; €1 286 286 (Lm 561 078) in medicines; €152 335 (Lm 66 452) in stool culture testing and €71 487 (Lm 31 183) in personal costs, giving a total cost of illness of over €16 million (7 million Lm) per year. The burden and cost of IID are high enough to justify efforts to control the illness. Such estimates are important to assess the cost-effectiveness of proposed specific interventions.


Author(s):  
Alex Rajczi

Some people object to social minimum programs, including certain health care programs, because they believe the programs impose excessive taxes and other personal costs on those who fund them. This chapter argues that the most plausible philosophical reconstruction of this objection would rely on a personal cost principle which says that, in general, the proper level of the social minimum is at least partly a function of whether the benefits provided by the social minimum programs outweigh the costs, when judged on a scale that assigns disproportionate weight to those who bear the costs. It is argued that the personal cost principle can find a place within several plausible theories of justice, and that, in addition, the benefits of a well-designed universal health insurance system outweigh its costs.


1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-203
Author(s):  
Kendra Carlson

The Supreme Court of California held, in Delaney v. Baker, 82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 610 (1999), that the heightened remedies available under the Elder Abuse Act (Act), Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code, §§ 15657,15657.2 (West 1998), apply to health care providers who engage in reckless neglect of an elder adult. The court interpreted two sections of the Act: (1) section 15657, which provides for enhanced remedies for reckless neglect; and (2) section 15657.2, which limits recovery for actions based on “professional negligence.” The court held that reckless neglect is distinct from professional negligence and therefore the restrictions on remedies against health care providers for professional negligence are inapplicable.Kay Delaney sued Meadowood, a skilled nursing facility (SNF), after a resident, her mother, died. Evidence at trial indicated that Rose Wallien, the decedent, was left lying in her own urine and feces for extended periods of time and had stage I11 and IV pressure sores on her ankles, feet, and buttocks at the time of her death.


1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-275
Author(s):  
O. Lawrence ◽  
J.D. Gostin

In the summer of 1979, a group of experts on law, medicine, and ethics assembled in Siracusa, Sicily, under the auspices of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science, to draft guidelines on the rights of persons with mental illness. Sitting across the table from me was a quiet, proud man of distinctive intelligence, William J. Curran, Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Legal Medicine at Harvard University. Professor Curran was one of the principal drafters of those guidelines. Many years later in 1991, after several subsequent re-drafts by United Nations (U.N.) Rapporteur Erica-Irene Daes, the text was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly as the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care. This was the kind of remarkable achievement in the field of law and medicine that Professor Curran repeated throughout his distinguished career.


1988 ◽  
Vol 52 (11) ◽  
pp. 637-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
TA Dolan ◽  
CR Corey ◽  
HE Freeman

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