Cover surgery to help in losing weight

Absolutely not.

From the Cincinnutcases in Ohio.

"Why should one disease be treated any differently than others when it comes to insurance coverage?

That's a question more and more Americans should be asking about the disease of obesity."

The answer should be, re: obesity, "It should not."

Further, obesity is NOT a disease. It is a choice.

The stage is set for the spurious editorial argument of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

"The chart on Page E5 divides up the problem into categories - overweight, obese, severely obese, morbidly obese and the newly coined term to deal with the growing problem - super obese.

Excess weight can be a crippling and deadly disease."

There is the conclusory mantra repeated again à la Goebbels. You know (to paraphrase), if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth.

"Some companies, as Lang's report spells out (see article), may approve the surgery, but only after the patient has first spent months or even years trying diets and other weight-loss regimens that statistically have little chance of success with severe cases.

The unfairness of such a policy, and the risks involved, seem obvious."

It is absolutely fair and appropriate to attempt conservative methods before more radical means of therapy.

What the ignoramuses on the editorial staff ignore, is that diet advice is wrong ensuring "little chance of success."

This is what they should investigate, assuming they have the mental capacity to investigate critically. This would appear to be a big assumption.

What seems obvious is that these folk have transitioned from morbidly stupid to severely stupid.

Small wonder newspapers are going the way of the dinosaur.

But even with the bad advice and the malpractice known as bariatric surgery aside, the mini-minds in Cincinnati want to protect us from ourselves and have society pay for the bad decision-making of the fat.

If these pigs cannot see that they are going from overweight to obese to severely obese to morbidly obese to super obese and refuse to make changes, then they are where they intended to be.

Leave them there.

When they are ready to change, they will.

The universal laws of physics are on their side.

It is impossible to fail. If they want to succeed.

But, these morons in Ohio feel differently.

"Increased cost, to the employer and the employees paying for insurance, is the reason most often cited for not including such surgeries under basic coverage plans. But any covered procedure involves costs and as noted above obesity often leads to other serious health problems with even greater costs."

Solution - don't pay or pay a "subsistence amount" for the other stuff until the fat lose weight.

"Accepting obesity as a disease, and covering its treatment as we would most other diseases, is the way to deal with this serious health problem."

Clearly, wrong.

The way to deal with it is to have people experience the results of their behavior and if they are displeased with it, they will change.

Like the psychiatrists and the light bulb.

And without siphoning off additional resources from the rest of us.

"A society that pushes 'super sized' helpings of fat-laden fast food shouldn't be surprised at rising numbers of overweight children who grow into even more overweight adults.

A society that eliminates physical education from school calendars, builds neighborhoods that require car rides instead of walking and has kids playing games on computers instead of ball fields should not be surprised that younger generations grow more sedentary."

I wonder if these idiots would make the same argument if, say, their daughters wore short skirts and were gang-raped. Or their sons wore expensive basketball shoes and were shot while being robbed of them. Something on the order of this:

"A society that pushes hemlines up shouldn't be surprised at rising numbers of rapes by minors who grow into even more rape-prone adults."

Then there is this:

"As today's special report explains, even those who undergo weight-loss surgery must reform their eating and exercise habits if the benefits are to be permanent."

Duh. If the porkers would have done that in the first place, the whole matter would have been obviated.

"The cost to our society of all the unwanted pounds being carried by the millions of us who are overweight is billions of dollars - in insurance and medical expenses and lost productivity and sick time."

Only because we are catering to and paying for these fat people.

If they had to pay for their own treatment, billions would be saved and the overweight and obese would find a way to shed pounds or live the life they chose.