Obamacare Insurance Won’t Cover Weight-Loss Surgery In Many States
JACKSON, Miss. — Uninsured Americans who are hoping the new health insurance law will give them access to weight loss treatments are likely to be disappointed. That’s especially the case in the Deep South where obesity rates are some of the highest in the nation, and states will not require health plans sold on the new online insurance marketplaces to cover medical weight loss treatments, whether prescription drugs or bariatric surgery.
Dr. Erin Cummins directs the bariatric surgery department at Central Mississippi Medical Center in the state capital of Jackson. She grew up in the Delta, her husband is a cotton farmer, and although she’s petite and fit, she understands well enough how Mississippians end up on her operating table.
You have to realize in the South, everything revolves around food. Reunions, funerals, parties — everything revolves around food,” Cummins says.
That long-standing culture – and other factors like inactivity and poverty – have saddled Mississippi with the highest obesity rate in the nation. Doctors here are no longer surprised to see 20-somethings with diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, heart disease and severe joint pain. And the prevalence of severe and super-obesity is growing rapidly. For those patients, bariatric surgery is considered the most effective treatment to induce significant weight loss.
