Does Cleveland Clinic’s Toby Cosgrove really hate fat people?
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove’s contribution to the health reform debate has been to trumpet the problems with obesity and, through that, the idea of taking personal responsibility for health-care costs. He’s made his rounds on The New York Times, NPR, the Wall Street Journal and CNN, among other places, noting that while the Clinic can avoid hiring smokers, it can’t turn down the obese. “We are protecting people who are overweight rather than giving people a social stigma,” he told The Wall Street Journal Health Blog. Cosgrove got some blowback on that position on Wednesday at the Clinic’s own Obesity Summit 2009. Walter Lindstrom Jr., founder of the Obesity Law & Advocacy Center in California, told Cosgrove he was demonizing overweight people, and he characterized Cosgrove’s public remarks as “unfortunate and misguided,” according to The Plain Dealer. The Associated Press said Cosgrove was told he was creating a “bias mentality” against the obese. “Do you wish
