Comment Re:Cool (Score 1) 119
What's even cheaper is eradicating the instances of lifestyle diabetes - which are all of those cases of diabetes that occur by personal choice. Yes, there are autoimmune cases of diabetes, but the vast majority of diabetes cases occur by choice in people who refuse to put the fork down when they've had enough to eat, or refuse to stop drinking 5 gallons/day of sugared soda.
One of the new features of Obamacare is that insurance companies can steer you into healthy lifestyles and charge you a surcharge if you do not comply. Starting in 2014, our insurance company charges up to a $100/month-person surcharge for being "outside the fence" of acceptable measurements, which include BMI, blood pressure, fasting glucose, resting heart rate, and bodyfat percentage. You have to go in once/year for measurement, and if you are outside the box, you can remeasure again in 6 months.
We also have to turn in "verifiable workouts" either by going to an approved gym (at our expense), or log walks/runs/bike rides, etc with our smartphones - basically proving that we aren't sitting on our tails all the time. Failure to comply brings a surcharge (which is not a premium increase, btw - this is how Obama advertised that premiums would not go up. They aren't. But surcharges - oh boy...)
Not many insurance companies are doing this, but I imagine that more and more will as more and more people sign up and cost billions in treatment or obesity and inactivity-related disease.