UK Considers Cutting Benefits For Drug Users And Obese People Who Refuse Treatment

Carol Black, an advisor to the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK, has launched a review to consider whether drug and alcohol abusers and the obese should lose federal benefits if they refuse treatment offered by the government.

The review, which Prime Minster David Cameron has ordered to be completed by the end of the year, is designed to "establish the role such treatable conditions play in causing worklessness and estimate the associated cost to the exchequer [the UK's tax revenue service] and the economy."

In 2014, 7,440 working-age residents who received federal allowances were able to do so because their disabling condition was obesity. "There were also 240 incapacity benefit and severe disablement allowance claimants, and 1,540 people claiming employment and support allowance," according to The Guardian.

These numbers are believed to underrepresent the number of citizens who claim allowances as a result of their obesity, given that a number of them can list another condition as their main disabling condition, which may be caused or made worse by obesity.