Congress can help Mississippi fight obesity. Here's how
Mississippi is ground zero for the obesity epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control, Mississippi has one of the highest adult obesity rates in the country. Obesity, defined as a chronic disease by the American Medical Association, is often left unmentioned and untreated in exam rooms.
Health care providers are not willing participants in ignoring this chronic disease that the Obesity Medicine Association refers to as a root cause of over 200 co-morbidities and 13 types of cancer. I see it every day as a family nurse practitioner. Instead of utilizing standard-of-care treatment options, insurance companies and wealth dictate what options patients will have.
When patients ask me what their options are, my answer is always, “it depends on what your insurance allows, or what you can afford.” It’s a hard sentence to say to a person asking for help and not what I had in mind when I dreamed of being a nurse.
Instead of practicing preventative medicine, HCPs are left reacting to complications of obesity. We add a third drug for diabetes, a second pill for cholesterol, another blood pressure medication, physical therapy for knee pain, and … this list could go on forever. We are, for lack of a better euphemism, slapping on “band-aids” to patch our patients up until the next big exacerbation of any one of their multiple chronic conditions.
Rather than treat the underlying cause of obesity, we are scrambling to keep our patients alive. The projections for the future of Mississippi are dire. Obesity is the root cause of all the leading causes of death in Mississippi — heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and hypertension. Unlike these potentially fatal chronic diseases, treatment for obesity is often “excluded” from insurance coverage.
If I haven’t been clear enough, over one-third of Mississippians are suffering from obesity, essentially due to inadequate insurance. If eating less and moving more was the answer, then we wouldn’t be in the middle of this ever-worsening public health crisis. For many, even that is a luxury they may not have.
Poverty, lack of access to healthy food options or safe exercise environments only exacerbates the issue. Tools such as anti-obesity medication and bariatric surgery bridge the gap beyond lifestyle changes to a sustainable healthier life.
Congress now has the opportunity to give Medicare patients access to effective, standard-of-care treatments that fight obesity head on. The Treat and Reduce Obesity Act of 2023, S. 2407, has recently been introduced to allow coverage for AOMs under the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program.
The current outdated restriction for Medicare coverage was put in place over 15 years ago before scientists developed AOMs that combat the disease itself instead of just easing symptoms. Medicare covers bariatric surgery, no longer the only long-term treatment option for obesity. However, AOMs are excluded from coverage.
These FDA-approved medications are proven to successfully treat obesity and alleviate hundreds of related diseases. Obesity is treatable and preventable, but patients must have access to all effective treatment options — including anti-obesity medications.
The consequences of this disease not only affect more than two in five Americans, but obesity is costing taxpayers millions. In one study, total obesity-related government expenditures in the U.S., including Medicaid and Medicare spending and federal outlays, were estimated to be $91.6 billion per year. This accounts for approximately 30% of Medicare spending nationally.
Data from the National Taxpayers Union estimates that we spend between $200 and $500 billion each year on obesity-related complications. Providing coverage for AOMs will ultimately show cost savings due to reduced medications and services for the comorbidities that go along with obesity. Instead of multiple expensive “band-aids,” we could be treating the source and preventing further complications.
This disease has overtaken our state. It is time to equip Mississippians with every treatment option available. Recently a significant leap forward occurred with the addition of anti-obesity medication to Mississippi Medicaid, but we cannot fight this epidemic without all Mississippians having access to treatment.
I urge our Mississippi lawmakers in Washington to support this legislation that will remove Medicare’s prohibition on covering critical obesity medications for our seniors. Instead of being known as ground zero for the obesity epidemic, Mississippi could set the standard for health equality in obesity treatment.
— Christy Davis, DNP, FNP-C, co-chair, Mississippi Obesity Society.
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Congress can help Mississippi fight obesity
