GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Slowing the expected increase in growing obesity rates in the United States can drastically reduce health care costs, according to an analysis presented at a Washington health conference, National Public Radio reports.
According to the evaluation presented at the Weight of the Nation conference in Washington and published in the American Journal for Preventative Medicine, if obesity in the US were to stay at 2010 levels, the combined savings in medical costs over the next two decades would amount to $549.5 billion.
The study also presented a leveling in the rate of growth of the US overweight population. Currently 33 percent of Americans are obese and by 2030, 42 percent are expected to be so, below the expected level of 51 percent. Obesity is defined in terms of a body mass index that compares weight to height. Obesity represents a ratio above 25 kg/m2, and severe obesity a ratio greater than 30kg/m2.
The World Health Organization says that worldwide, obesity is on the rise, having more than doubled since 1980, with 1.5 billion people being overweight or obese. It attributes the problem of overweight and obesity to 44 percent of the diabetes burden and to 23 percent of the heart disease burden.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – It pays to live in certain locations, if you want to live longer and for men, this might mean Fairfax, Virginia over a lot of other places, says Bloomberg news agency in an article on a new report by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle in the US. The study, carried out with Imperial College London, reviewed data from more than 3,100 counties in the US. Among its other findings: while Americans spend more per capita than any other nation on healthcare, the country is behind more than 30 other nations in life expectancy.
Geneva's voters say yes to school reform
Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Swiss voters Sunday 17 May adopted biometric passports and a government proposal for insurance to cover, to a limited extent, complementary medicine costs. In cantonal and communal votes, Geneva’s citizens accepted their government’s proposal to reform the education system and they have voted to abolish citizen juries. In Vaud, a new commune has been created, Bourg-en-Lavaux, which embraces five villages.
Swiss health care costs by sector, 2008 (click on image to view larger)
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The cost of health care in Switzerland rose 3.9 percent, or CHF679 per person, in 2008. The largest increases were for outpatient treatment (+10.4 percent) and laboratory fees (+8.5 percent). Hospital costs were relatively contained, rising only 1.5 percent.
Outpatient costs account for nearly 25 percent of all obligatory health insurance expenditure, with doctors’ fees 22.9 percent. The latter rose 3.4 percent in 2007 and 4.3 percent in 2008, to CHF679 per person. On average, the obligatory insurance system spent CHF2,973 per person in 2008.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government’s latest figures for health care costs, for 2007, show that costs “rose markedly higher than in the previous five years,” by nearly five percent in a year, to CHF55.3 million. Given the growth of the economy overall, the share of health care spending as a percentage of GDP remained stable at 10.3 percent. Only the US, with over 15 percent of GPD (gross domestic product) and France, with 11 percent, spend more on health care than Switzerland, based on 2006 OECD figures, a government report published 30 March indicates.
