Are elderly obese patients receiving proper and life sustaining treatment?
How much is a life worth and who decides who covers the extra medical expenses ?
A normal weight, seventy year old individual has approximately the same life expectancy as that of an obese patient, but will incur more than 40,000.00 per year in additional health care cost to actually live out that life span. This can bring along with it ethics issues concerning who pays the extra medical bills and what insurance companies are willing to cover. Older patients can opt for bariatric surgery, just as the young and middle adult patients do, but this may require another costly bill if the patient has to spend an extended stay in a nursing home while recovering.
|
CLICK HERE TO ENLARGE ^
|