[Obesity Discussion]

I attended a presentation on this report by PricewaterhouseCoopers yesterday and things are not looking good. The report contains studies, surveys and research done with the top medical professionals across the world. Tens of millions of dollars went into this report.The full report and executive summary of the report are attached below. You need Adobe Acrobat to read them. The main report (broken into 2 parts) is 60 pages, while the executive summary is 8 pages. The main report is really what gives you the amazing information so I suggest checking that one out.

Some of the negatives from the presentation I went to (included in the report), some of which will end up costing us more money for heatlhcare:

- Medicare money to be extinguished by the year 2020 at a minimum
- The medical professions' inability to work together
- The medical professions' inefficient methods of keeping track of information and serving patients
- How unprepared we are for a pandemic (bird flu)
- Price gouging
- Lack of spending on infrastructure and IT
- The US pays more money for healthcare for worse care in many instances
- Leading cause of medical deaths are "medical accidents" leading to expensive lawsuits crazy malpractice rates which affect us

Some of the positives and things to look forward to:

- Custom tailored drugs for each individual based on their genetics to give them medicine that works best for them
- The ability to find the perfect medical facility on demand based on medical need, wait time, and insurance acceptance
- Custom mapping of individuals as youths and adults to determine if they are genetically predisposed to certain diseases or illnesses so that we can monitor them more frequently for trouble areas or try to cure problems before they occur (i.e. cancer).
- The overall explosion of Genomics