We West Virginians need to lose some weight.
That is not polite to say, and not something most of us want to hear, but the numbers bear this out.
The recently released Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps for 2023 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the obesity rate for West Virginia is 41.2 percent. That is the highest in the nation.
The CDC defines obesity as a body mass index of 30 or higher for adults 20 and older. Body mass is the measure of a person’s weight in relation to their height.
Being overweight can contribute to all sorts of health issues: High blood pressure and high cholesterol, which are risk factors for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breathing problems such as asthma and sleep apnea, joint and muscular discomfort, gallstones and gallbladder disease.
Obesity is a contributing factor to West Virginia having one of the least healthy populations of any state.
The new panel of weight loss drugs can help. According to the National Institutes of Health, “Prescription medications to treat overweight and obesity work in different ways. For example, some medications may help you feel less hungry or full sooner. Other medications may make it harder for your body to absorb fat from the foods you eat.”
The problem, however, is that drugs like Wegovy, Zepbound and Ozempic can cost over $1,000 a month and insurance may not pay for them.
For example, West Virginia’s Public Employee Insurance Agency, which covers 200,000 public employees and their families, earlier this year discontinued a pilot program to cover the drugs for weight loss because of the cost. As our Brad McElhinny reported, “The cost was mounting, even though the program was limited to about 1,000 people—adding up to $1.3 million a month.”
PEIA still covers the drug for diabetes, and that also gets expensive. PEIA Director Brian Cunningham told the agency’s finance board that PEIA costs for the drugs for weight loss and diabetes for the first 11 months of the fiscal year would reach $84 million.
Medicaid, the state’s health system for the poor, will cover some of the new drugs to treat diabetes, but not for weight loss. The expense of the weight loss drugs puts them out of reach for most West Virginians.
There is an irony here; West Virginia cannot afford to pay for drugs that help people lose weight and avoid the health problems that come with obesity, but PEIA and Medicaid do foot the bill when individuals become diabetic or suffer other chronic ailments as a result of weight gain.
Of course, diet and exercise are important for good health. However, these drugs can be complementary to efforts to lose weight and keep it off. This is frustrating because a potential aid to one of West Virginia’s most significant health problems is tantalizingly close, but still out of reach.