By STEPHEN SINGER
The Associated Press
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Aetna Inc. on Thursday announced plans to offer an employer insurance package to help health plan members fight obesity.
The plan to combat obesity, announced at a Time-ABC News obesity summit in Williamsburg, Va., will be designed to help health plan members monitor weight loss, reduce body-mass index, get more exercise and reduce hypertension.
"Fighting excessive weight is one of the toughest challenges facing many Americans today, and this is a battle that millions of people just aren't winning," said William C. Popik, the chief medical officer for the Hartford-based insurer.
Enrollment will be voluntary and include incentives for participation and increased physical activity such as pedometers that measure distance walked, discounts to community-based weight loss programs, support from nurses, weight loss counselors and coordination with a health plan member's doctor.
Aetna expects to introduce the program in October or later.
Cheryl Pegus, Aetna's national medical director for women's health who led the program's development, said obesity often is due to "complicated, compressed lives" that prompt people to routinely eat at restaurants, avoid exercise and indulge in other bad habits.
Aetna's plan would include helping patients find doctors who provide nutritional counseling or just urging employers to open a stairwell for employees to use instead of an elevator.
The program would include a "huge educational component" to doctors who identify on claims forms illnesses such as diabetes and heart conditions, but not obesity.
Pegus compared the obesity program with Aetna's initiative collecting data on racial and ethnic backgrounds of its health plan members to narrow the gap in medical treatment between whites and minorities.
Nationwide, two-thirds of U.S. adults are classified as overweight or obese by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Obesity is associated with heart disease, certain types of cancer, type 2 diabetes, stroke, arthritis, breathing problems and psychological disorders such as depression.
Medical spending attributed to obesity in the United States reached $75 billion last year, Aetna said. About half that amount was financed by taxpayers for Medicare and Medicaid spending.
Significant increases in diabetes due to obesity began emerging 10 years ago, Pegus said.
"It's very fixable," she said.
Aetna, which has 13.3 million medical plan members, will make its anti-obesity program available in the workplaces, Pegus said.
In trading Thursday, Aetna shares were up $2.52, to $84.88 on the New York Stock Exchange.