Chris Christie has lap band surgery, will that hurt or help him in 2016?

he waited untilObamacare was the law otherwise I would have expected the insurance company to deny him coverage. His obesity is a pre-existing condition.

 

He made a decent amount of coin in private practice and his brother (who paved the way for Christie's political career by writing a lot of checks) is really loaded.

 

WriteThinking, pictured after his surgery:

 

I'd like to see if he paid for the entire cost of the procedure out of pocket or he submitted a claim to his health insurance.

Is this a pre-existing condition which could have been denied, but for Obama care?
Is this more cosmetic than medical?
Is this elective surgery and on what basis is elective surgery covered by his insurance company, if it is from his employment in government?

When he runs for president, I think these are fair points for him to address.

Does he think every school bus driver who is obese should get this procedure paid for by taxpayer supported health insurance? And it is taxpayer supported, NJ government employees do not pay the entire cost of the insurance premium.

 

I was the size of Christie. At my physical in January, I was 6 feet, 341 lbs. Doctor said by looking he wasn't expecting me to weigh that much. Good news was all my other numbers - blood pressure, cholesterol and the such - were good and not anywhere near what they should have been for someone my size.
Basically, it comes down to eating too much and drinking calories. I drink water all day, except on Wednesdays when I have some Captain and Diets (2 1/4 ounces of booze, 144 calories per drink; I'll stop next week) and the occasional beer on the golf course. I've cut most red meat out of my diet and learned how to cook a little. I measure everything I put into my body. I'm slowly getting used to eating smaller portions.
I want to lose weight to be healthy; my wife, a Type 1 diabetic, told me if I got Type 2 she'd kill me. I also want to lose weight so I can buy pants and shirts in the store instead of the online fatty section. Last year I wore a size 48 pant that was a little loose; now I can fit into a 44. The goal is to get to 38 so I can wear all the baby blue, pink and coral green pants I want.

 

Jesus, talk about trading one problem for another.

In all seriousness, hell yeah, Rhody!

 

I can answer a few of these on behalf of Christie:

1. Usually obesity isn't a "pre-existing condition," but it doesn't matter anyway, because under the Affordable Care Act an insurance company can't turn you down for coverage on that basis. Plus, Christie would be in a group plan, anyway, so that's another reason pre-existing conditions wouldn't enter into it.

2. The National Institutes of Health count bariatric surgery as medical, not cosmetic, because of the proven effect it has (assuming you stay with the regimen) in reducing obesity-related illnesses or preventing them. Health insurance generally covers bariatric surgery, though they don't cover the "cosmetic" part of removing excess skin generated by the rapid weight loss.

3. It's elective surgery in that it wasn't an emergency, and can be scheduled at everyone's convenience. Heck, an angioplasty can be considered elective surgery. But insurers are generally going to cover elective surgeries that have proven health benefits -- as in, your grandma's cataract surgery, while elective, will help her see. The elective surgeries that aren't covered are generally cosmetic in nature. My recent surgery to correct a deviated septum and other nasal issues was covered. If I had the doctor shave off a bit of my prominent proboscis while he was there because I wanted to look prettier, that would be all out of my pocket.

4. Would he advocate every bus driver (i.e., unworthy poor person) having access to this? I would hope so. Back to NIH's statement on this as a medical issue, there are plenty of studies showing long-term benefits, medically and fiscally, to the surgery. The issue, fiscally, is that the benefits tend not to show up in the first few years, but they come.

Anyone who tries to make an electoral issue out of Christie's lap band surgery is going to run into these issues:
He had health reasons for doing it, and it's covered for most anyone who has insurance, and lots of plus-sized voters are out there who might not appreciate a candidate denigrating large people. I suspect in the primary Republicans will stay away from fat jokes, and run a loop of Christie hugging and saying nice things about Our Kenyan Usurper Not-A-Citizen Barely Sotero Obummer Socialist Muslim Hitler President.

 

Thanks, excellent information.

It is an election issue not because he's fat and you can make fun of his self-induced obesity and lifestyle but because as a Republican running in the primaries he must be conservative. That the Affordable Care Act helped him but he will deny, as he must to win the right wing in primaries, those benefits to others in the future is an issue. Group insurance, paid for in large part by his employer, is an anathema to republicans and insurance is just private socialism to the right.

School bus drivers may be part time employees and not subject to employer mandated insurance another wedge issue. As fulltime employment gets harder for the lower middle class and young workers, employers are hiring to skirt the full time employment rules, which the right love.

Christie's own experience and benefits are an issue, if he chooses to deny others the rights he has enjoyed.

 

Come on, man ...

 

But Christie is a great guy and an even better person.

 

I wonder if that information would come out when financials are disclosed.

The truly smart move would be to pay for the surgery himself. I doubt he did. My aunt didn't pay for her lapband surgery and I'm guessing her insurance is not as good as Governor Chrtistie's.

I don't blame him for a second if he had his insurance pay for it, but the truly savvy move would be to pay for it himself.

 

I'm a flaming liberal, but even I have to ask, why would that matter? It's not like he got a facelift paid for by campaign donors who were then rewarded with lucrative state contracts. As long as he didn't get anything that any other New Jersey state employee had gotten, who cares? It's not like anyone would except him to pay for, say, open-heart surgery. Heck, he might be doing taxpayers a favor by reducing his long-term health costs.

Speaking of long-term health costs, as an aside, we may be at a point where the health care cost curve actually is getting bent. Growth has slowed quite a bit. Some of that is the recession (people put off care because they couldn't afford it), but there are plenty of other trends pushing spending -- well, if not downward, at least to the point where at least health care won't bankrupt us nearly as fast as once thought.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/business/slowdown-in-rise-of-health-care-costs-may-persist.html?pagewanted=all