West Virginia is one of America’s most overweight states — it ranks third in obesity behind Mississippi and Tennessee. Now Medicaid is stepping in to help residents slim down.
The medium-sized state with the huge weight problem faces more than one hundred million dollars in annual costs related to obesity. Medicaid and UniCare (the largest Medicaid provider in West Virginia) will be offering the Weight Watchers program to up to seventy-five thousand overweight West Virginians. This move will help reduce the risks of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and other obesity-related health issues AND help reduce annual healthcare costs.
Medicaid programs are eligible to low-income residents, who are more likely to be overweight than high-income residents.
Interested in participating in the program? Medicaid clients of UniCare can get a body mass index check and physician’s referral to join the program. UniCare will cover the costs for sixteen weeks of Weight Watchers. If the program is a success in West Virginia, UniCare (a subsidiary of Wellpoint Inc. of Indiana) will work on similar efforts in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
TennCare — Tennessee’s Medicaid agency — tried a pilot program similar to West Virginia’s plan. Fourteen hundred Medicaid recipients paid reduced fees to participate in Weight Watchers and lost a combined total of more than eight thousand pounds.
There are a few drawbacks to this plan. Approximately two thirds of adult West Virginians are overweight or obese, but only about a quarter of them are covered by UniCare. And a spokesperson the American Society of Bariatric Physicians is concerned that the group weight loss program may not be the right kind of help for overweight or obese West Virginians. Some people might benefit more from an individual and more supervised weight loss program from their doctor.