Posted 2/21/2008

WHO COULD LOVE A CIGAR-SMOKING FAT MAN?

Charles Hoagie is a man searching for love.

Unfortunately, he's not having much success.

His 265 pounds draped over a five-foot-nine frame isn't turning any feminine heads in the neighborhood or at work. One woman was heard to remark, "He looks like a Hoagie. The sandwich, I mean."

His weight isn't the only cruel cut he's received from the far side. Because he smokes cigars – big fat cigars – he's come be called "Hoagie the Stogie."

Once, while playing golf with pick-up foursome, he three-putted on a par three. One of his companions quickly commemorated the event with a new nickname – "Hoagie the Bogie."

In the midst of a mammoth mid-life crisis, Hoagie wonderd if he'll ever find love before becoming "Hoagie the Fogie."

Well, Hoagie should cheer up. There are lots of people who have recently found several reasons to love Hoagie.

Who could love a cigar-smoking fat man?

The Secretary of the Treasury and all the federal budgeteers, that's who.

It seems the folks in Washington have just read a newly published study which debunks the old idea that fat smokers are bad for the economy because they run up health costs.

According to the study, thin, healthy non-smokers incur higher health costs because they live longer. Healthy people live to an average age of 84, and run up total health care costs of $417,000.

But obese people live only to an average age 80 and generate health care costs of just $371,000. Smokers are even nicer to the deficit boys, living to be only 77 and incurring measly health care costs of $326,000 during their truncated lifespans.

That's why our would-be budget balancers are now in love with fat, smokers like Hoagie. You can read all about it in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine.

Now it gets even better if you go beyond the study and throw in Social Security. Smokers die early and save the Social Security Administration seven years of payments. At $18,000 a year, that comes to $126,000.

The obese, by leaving the planet early, save Uncle Sam $72,000 in Social Security payments.

Hoagie should take a trip to Washington, light up a cigar and say, "Gentlemen, I am your quarter of a million dollar man."

He might even get them to encourage the reintroduction of junk foods and candy in school cafeterias.

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