Obesity Driving Rising U.S. Health Costs(Europe. American adults were also more l...),Health

"The United States spends more on health care than any country in Europe," Thorpe said. In the United States, in 2004 the per capita spending on health care was $6,102 -- about twice as much as in the Netherlands and Germany, and almost twice that of France.

If the prevalence of obesity could be reduced (and along with it, chronic disease), Thorpe's team estimates that health spending could be cut by $100 billion to $150 billion per year, trimming up to 18.7 percent off the nation's total health-care budget.

There are several reasons for the costs of chronic disease in the United States, Thorpe's group notes. In addition to high rates of obesity and smoking, these include more aggressive cancer screening in the United States than in Europe, and more intensive drug treatment for chronic disease than in Europe, further driving up costs.

Thorpe believes the only way to get health-care costs under control is to find ways to reduce obesity. "There is a lack of an effective primary-care system in this country," he said. "We have to manage patients with chronic conditions more effectively, and we have got to find a way to prevent this rise in obesity."

One expert agreed with the scope of the problem, but said solutions remain elusive.

"There are two reasons why the U.S. might spend more of our total economy on health care than any other country -- treatment here costs more, and more of us need treatment," said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.

That Americans are fatter than Europeans comes as no surprise, Katz said, but that more Americans smoke is surprising. "This finding does make me question the reliability of the data to some degree. But even if we know for sur
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