Girth Control

By Bill Maher

There was a story recently about how obesity among pre-schoolers has declined. And it's about time. It was getting to the point where they could barely fit into the cereal aisles they were throwing tantrums in. But overall childhood obesity has steadily risen since the 1970s.

Researchers at the Duke Global Health Institute and Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore did a study to put a price tag on childhood obesity and it turns out it costs a pretty penny to have a fat kid. The "direct medical costs" - doctor appointments, procedures, medicines, replacing broken waiting room furniture - of treating obesity in children comes to an almost unbelievable $19,000 per kid.

We hear anti-Obamacare Tea Partiers constantly complaining about "Giving free healthcare to the takers." Or, "Oh, my premiums went up by $250 a year." Oh yeah? Well, they were gonna go up anyway. And your fat-ass kid is costing all of us four times that.

As always, they're cherry-picking the spending they find intolerable. Why are so many so opposed to covering the necessary healthcare costs for poor kids and yet so willing to cover the avoidable healthcare costs for fat kids? Shouldn't they be just as outraged at the "cakers" as they are at the "takers"?