Annual medical spending attributable to obesity: Payer-and service-specific estimates

Health Affairs

Volumn 28, Issue 5, 2009, Pages

  Finkelstein, Eric A ^a   Trogdon, Justin G ^b   Cohen, Joel W ^b   Dietz, William ^c  

^a RTI INTERNATIONAL   (United States)

^b AGENCY FOR HEALTHCARE RESEARCH AND QUALITY   (United States)

^c NATIONAL CENTER FOR CHRONIC DISEASE PREVENTION AND HEALTH PROMOTION   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ANTIOBESITY AGENT;

ARTICLE; COST CONTROL; DRUG COST; HEALTH CARE COST; HEALTH CARE FINANCING; HEALTH CARE POLICY; HOSPITAL CARE; HUMAN; MEDICAID; MEDICARE; OBESITY; OUTPATIENT CARE; PRESCRIPTION; PREVALENCE; PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE; UNITED STATES;

ADULT; BODY MASS INDEX; FEMALE; HEALTH CARE COSTS; HEALTH CARE SURVEYS; HEALTH EXPENDITURES; HUMANS; INSURANCE, HEALTH; MALE; OBESITY; PREVALENCE; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; UNITED STATES;

EID: 70349207410     PISSN: 02782715     EISSN: 15445208     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.28.5.w822     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. Finkelstein EA, Fiebelkorn IC, Wang G. National medical spending attributable to overweight and obesity: how much, and who's paying? Health Aff (Millwood). 2003;22:w3-219-226
2. Thorpe KE, Florence CS, Howard DH, Joski P. The impact of obesity on rising medical spending. Health Aff (Millwood). 2004;23:w4-480-486 (Pubitemid 40520484)
3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System [Internet]. Atlanta (GA): CDC; 2009 Apr 30 [cited 2009 Jul 14]. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/brfss
4. Data used to calculate bodymass index (BMI) in the 1998 analysis came from the Sample Adult File of the National Health Interview Survey, the sampling frame for the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). Because only a subset of MEPS participants took this NHIS module, the analysis file for 1998 is much smaller than in 2006 (N = 10,597 and 21,877, respectively), where data used to calculate BMI are directly captured in MEPS.
5. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Medicare. Washington (DC): DHHS; [cited 2009 Jul 14]. Available from: http://www.medicare.gov/ MedicareReform/drugbenefit.asp
6. In the 1998 data, MEPS does not include BMI; however, this information was available for a subset of MEPS participants. See Note 4.
7. The smaller sample size for 1998 does not allow for this level of analysis.
8. Manning WG, Mullahy J. Estimating log models: to transform or not to transform? J Health Econ 2001;20(4):461-494
9. Full regression results are available online at http://content. healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.28.5.w822/DC2.
10. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. National health expenditure data overview. Baltimore (MD): CMS; [updated 2009 Mar 7]. Available from: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/nationalhealthexpenddata
11. Sing M, Banthin JS, Selden TM, Cowan CA, Keehan SP. Reconciling medical expenditure estimates from the MEPS and NHEA, 2002. Health Care Financ Rev 2006;28(1):25-40.
12. AHRQ recommends that a general price index be used because it provides an overall sense of what a dollar can buy across different time periods. For a detailed discussion, see Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Medical Expenditure Panel Survey [Internet]. Rockville (MD): AHRQ; [cited 2009 Jul 14] Available from: http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/about-meps/Price-Index.shtml
13. From Exhibit 4: ($85,739 - $47,000)/($85,739 - $41,840) = 89 percent.
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15. Cremieux PY, Buchwald H, Shikora SA, Ghosh A, Yang HE, Buessing M. A study on the economic impact of bariatric surgery. Am J Manag Care 2008 Sep;14(9):589-596