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For workers at big U.S. employers, obesity may have a stronger correlation with claim costs for younger workers than for older workers.
Craig Kurtzweil, an executive at UnitedHealth's UnitedHealthcare unit, and Patty Starr, president of the Health Action Council, have presented data raising that possibility in a new analysis of the impact of obesity on employers and workers in the United States.
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The Health Action Council represents the interests of large employers that use UnitedHealthcare to provide their health benefits. Kurtzweil and Starr based parts of their report on a look at the council members' health plan claims.
For adult participants in the plans who were living with obesity, the average amount of claims was much higher than the average for members without obesity.
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Here are the average claim costs per member per month for the participants with obesity, along with how that average compares with the average for participants without obesity, broken out by generation:
Generation Z: $507 (127% higher)
Millennials: $570 (104% higher)
Generation X: $666 (92% higher)
Baby Boomer: $864 (64% higher)
"In terms of health care costs, living with obesity effectively ages a member by 27 years," Kurtzweil and Starr write.
The authors note that employer plan participants with obesity face a higher prevalence of conditions that might not seem to have an obvious connection with obesity.
Participants with obesity are 56% more likely to have multiple sclerosis and at least 100% more likely to have lupus.
The analysis is showing up at a time when policymakers in Washington are looking for ideas about what to do about obesity: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is keenly interested in the topic.
Researchers have estimated that obesity and obesity-related illnesses could cost the United States as much as $1.7 trillion per year as a result of their effects on health care costs, presenteeism, absenteeism, disability and premature death.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
