A broken arm is NOT A DISEASE but it's a physical condition that normally benefits from professional treatment, and nearly all insurers cover the cost of treatment. It DOES NOT MATTER whether it's the result of your kid falling off the trampoline or your grandpa being run over by the kid that's trying to learn to drive the tractor.

The common cold is quite obviously a disease, for which there is no particularly effective treatment; but nearly all insurers cover the cost of taking your kid to the doctor and for the antibiotics mama DEMANDS that the doctor prescribe which have no effect on any virus other than to produce new resistant virus variations.

Obesity is a physical condition that impairs function and that is a verified cause of other problems, and in MOST REAL CASES REQUIRES PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE to be effectively managed or improved. Insurers have been exceedingly capricious about whether or not they will pay for the assistance required. The causes of the problem are of no more legitimate concern to the insurers than what caused a broken arm, and if classifying it as a "disease" can result in more consistent coverage that is the proper thing to do.

Since obesity is a cause of a number of derivative ailments that are very expensive to treat, and for which there generally are no "cures," it is unrealistic to predict that the cost to insurers will be increased, as it is equally likely that treating obesity, where possible, will reduce their costs for the other conditions that obesity creates or aggravates.

Calling it a "disease" does not imply any "technical redefinition" of what obesity is or what it means to the patient. It only means that the physician can list it on the insurance claim as a recognized basis for treatment - and may get paid if and when the fat pigs at the insurance companies accept the change.

(A fringe benefit might be that insurers will make some determination of what specific treatments are of sufficient benefit to be useful and will be covered for at least some of the many possible causes of obesity. This might cut into the profits of some of the fadmongers (see all above posts) who make millions every month off of phony and often harmful products they foist on the gullible.)

John