Obesity to strain Medicare budget

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mississippi’s still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers.

It’s time for the nation’s annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there’s little good news. In 31 states, more than one in four adults is obese, says a new report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year, and no state experienced a significant decline. Ohio ranked No. 10, tied with Alabama. Pennsylvania ranked No. 22.

Though the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds — the oldest boomers — than among today’s 65-and-beyond.

The report provides one of the first in-depth looks at obese boomers, and its implications are sobering. This first wave of aging boomers will mean a jump of obese Medicare patients that ranges from 5.2 percent in New York to a high of 16.3 percent in Alabama, the report concluded. In Alabama, nearly 39 percent of the oldest boomers are obese.

Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner. But more recent research instead suggests that better treatments are keeping them alive nearly as long — but they’re much sicker for longer, requiring such costly interventions as knee replacements and diabetes care and dialysis. Medicare spends anywhere from $1,400 to $6,000 more annually on health care for an obese senior than for the non-obese.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long said that nearly a third of Americans are obese. The Trust report uses somewhat more conservative CDC surveys for a closer state-by-state look. Among the findings:

UMississippi had the highest rate of adult obesity, 32.5 percent, for the fifth year in a row.

UThree additional states now have adult obesity rates above 30 percent, including Alabama, 31.2 percent; West Virginia, 31.1 percent; and Tennessee, 30.2 percent. Ohio ranked 10th with an adult obesity rate of 28.6 percent.

UIn 1991, no state had more than a 20 percent obesity rate. Today, the only state that doesn’t is Colorado, at 18.9 percent.

UThe South is the fattest region. The Northeast and West are slightly slimmer than the rest of the country.

UMississippi also had the highest rate of overweight and obese children, at 44.4 percent in total. It’s followed by Arkansas, 37.5 percent; and Georgia, 37.3 percent.

UFollowing Alabama, Michigan ranks No. 2 with fat boomers; 36 percent of its 55- to 64-year-olds are obese. Colorado has the lowest rate, 21.8 percent.