July 2009

By Susan Heavey and Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats pushed healthcare reform legislation forward in a key House of Representatives panel on Friday but overall progress for President Barack Obama’s top policy goal has slowed ahead of a monthlong August recess.

“We’ve agreed that we need to pull together,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman told reporters, adding that his panel’s diverse group of Democrats had agreed on a package of amendments for the bill, which he expects will be approved later on Friday.

Those changes are expected to include an increase in subsidies for the poor and more savings from drug companies.

Obama has staked much of his political fortune on winning overhaul of the $2.5 trillion healthcare system this year, in order to expand insurance coverage to most Americans and hold down skyrocketing growth in medical costs.

But Congress will leave for a monthlong summer recess soon with major disagreements on its cost and scope unresolved.

The effort was dealt a major setback on Thursday when Senate Democrats said they had not made sufficient progress to permit a vote in the Finance Committee before senators leave next week for the summer break.

In the House, Waxman’s committee was to vote later Friday after reaching a compromise on changes designed to hold down costs sought by fiscal conservatives, known as “Blue Dog” Democrats, while also satisfying more liberal members who want to see broader healthcare coverage.

The compromise will include changes that will directly impact the pharmaceutical industry and health insurance companies, Democrats told reporters.

Representative Jane Harman, a Democrat and member of the Blue Dogs, said the House bill would include “a robust public option” for people to get health insurance, a main concern of liberal Democrats.

Waxman’s panel is the last of three House committees to vote on healthcare reform.

Obama has stepped up his lobbying for passage of a measure to rein in costs, improve care and cover most of the 46 million uninsured Americans.

But as congressional discussions drag on, more Americans are voicing doubt over the reform plan, with many worried that a costly overhaul could reduce the quality of their care and limit choices of doctors.

The White House and leaders of the Democratic-controlled Congress had hoped the final committees considering the measure in each chamber — the House Energy and Senate Finance panels — could complete deliberations before the August recess.

(Writing by Jackie Frank; Editing by Eric Beech)

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In a rural corner of Virginia, thousands of people without health insurance line up for days to receive free healthcare provided by an army of volunteer doctors and nurses.   Full Coverage | Blog 

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) – Teaching new mothers how to breastfeed could save 1.3 million children’s lives every year, but many women get no help and give up trying, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Less than 40 percent of mothers worldwide breastfeed their infants exclusively in the first six months, as recommended by the WHO. Many abandon it because they don’t know how to get their baby to latch on properly or suffer pain and discomfort.

“When it comes to doing it practically, they don’t have the practical support,” WHO expert Constanza Vallenas told a news briefing in Geneva, where the United Nations agency is based.

This is a problem in both rich and poor countries, she said, calling for more assistance in hospitals, health clinics and communities for new mothers who need information and help.

Pregnant women should also be made aware of the risks they face from both seasonal flu and the new H1N1 pandemic, the WHO said, calling as well for more attention to influenza symptoms in the vulnerable group.

Expectant mothers should get top priority for antiviral drugs like Tamiflu, ideally administered within 48 hours of the onset of illness, WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi told reporters.

“Pregnant women, when they get flu, are at risk and they should see a doctor,” she said. “It adds to the risk and it is really essential for pregnant women to seek medication.”

U.S. health experts have said that pregnant women should also be first to get vaccines against the H1N1 virus, known as swine flu, with caregivers for infants second.

The WHO recommends that babies start breastfeeding within one hour of their birth, and ingest only breast milk for the first six months, avoiding water and other drinks and foods.

This can give children vital nutrients and strengthen their immune system to fight diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia. Formula milk does not provide the same immunity and local water can be contaminated or unsafe in many parts of the world.

Raising to 90 percent the global breastfeeding rate for infants to six months would save an estimated 13 percent of the 10 million under-age-5 deaths a year, Vallenas said.

In a statement released to mark World Breastfeeding Week, August 1-7, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said it was also important that mothers in disaster zones be given the support they need to continue or restart breastfeeding.

“During emergencies, unsolicited or uncontrolled donations of breast milk substitutes may undermine breastfeeding and should be avoided,” Chan said, arguing abandoning breastfeeding could put vulnerable child lives at extra risk. “The focus should be on active protection and support of breastfeeding.”

(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

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BEIJING (Reuters) – Some 13 million abortions are carried out in China each year, in part because there is little education about contraception or disease for the rising numbers of young people who are having sex, state media said on Thursday.

Fewer than one in three callers to a Shanghai hotline knew how to avoid pregnancy, and only one in five were informed about venereal disease, the official China Daily quoted a survey by the city’s 411 Army Hospital saying.

“Sex is no longer considered taboo among young people today, and they believe they can learn everything they need from the Internet. But it doesn’t mean they have developed a proper understanding or attitude toward it,” the paper quoted hospital gynecologist Yu Dongyan saying.

Until the 1990s, doctors asked for women’s marital status at abortion clinics, which were part of the family planning system that limited urban couples to one child.

Now, government data shows that nearly two thirds of women who have abortions are between 20 and 29, and most are single, the paper said.

Birth control information is mainly given to young couples.

Some single women may also be driven to seek abortions because under current laws unmarried mothers cannot get a “hukou” or household registration card for their child.

Without one it is extremely hard for Chinese citizens to get access to education, healthcare and other public services. China also sells about 10 million abortion pills a year, and there are many other abortions performed in unregistered clinics, the paper quoted Wu Shangchun, a division director at the National Population and Family Planning Commission, as saying.

In the United States, by contrast, which has a population less than one-quarter that of China, official figures from the Center for Disease Control show there were 820,000 abortions performed in 2005, excluding California, Louisiana and New Hampshire for which no figures were provided.

Sun Xiaohong from the education department of Shanghai’s family planning authority said it was difficult to promote sex education in schools because some teachers and parents thought it would encourage teenagers to become sexually active.

Ordinary web users in China will be banned from surfing sex-related medical and research websites from July, amid an Internet crackdown on pornographic online content, that threatens to make information about sexual health even harder to access.

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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A public healthcare option is dead in the Senate and thus probably won’t happen, a source tells columnist James Pethokoukis. Democrats may soon have to tell the troops and interest groups that if you want some kind of healthcare bill, give up pushing for a public option.   Blog | Full Coverage 

By Donna Smith and Jackie Frank

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats broke a logjam in President Barack Obama’s drive to revamp the costly U.S. healthcare system on Wednesday when a group of party conservatives accepted a compromise that allowed an overhaul bill to advance in the House of Representatives.

The agreement with four conservative congressmen from Obama’s Democratic Party sparked immediate grumbling from liberals, Republicans and others even as the breakthrough allowed a key House committee to take up the bill.

Obama, whose chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, worked with members of Congress to craft the compromise, said he was grateful that lawmakers “are working so hard to find common ground.”

“Those efforts are extraordinarily constructive in strengthening this legislation and bringing down its cost,” Obama said.

Since taking office six months ago, Obama has made an overhaul of healthcare, which accounts for one-sixth of the U.S. economy, his top legislative priority and traveled to North Carolina and Virginia on Wednesday to push reform.

Obama insists it is crucial to a broader economic recovery and has pushed lawmakers — due to recess for a month soon — to forge a deal quickly to rein in healthcare costs, improve care and cover most of the 46 million uninsured Americans.

Representative Mike Ross, a leader of the conservative Democrats known as the “Blue Dogs,” told reporters the agreement, which followed lengthy negotiations with party leaders and the White House, would make healthcare reform more palatable to fiscal conservatives in both parties.

The Blue Dogs had put the brakes on the bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee, the last of three House committees to vote on it, over concerns about costs and other issues.

After Democrats met in closed session, committee chairman Henry Waxman said the full panel would consider amendments on Thursday with final passage on Friday. No amendments would be approved that did not fit the deal made with conservatives, he said.

However, House leaders could change the legislation before the full House votes in September.

Democratic Representative Eliot Engel said House leaders had left liberals on the panel with little choice but to vote for it as it stands or stall its progress.

“In a way, a number of us feel we’ve been held hostage,” Engel said.

While the bill still includes a government-run insurance program, liberals said a requirement that Washington negotiate prices with doctors and hospitals — putting the public plan on the same footing as private insurers — would make coverage unaffordable for many.

The compromise would exempt 86 percent of small businesses from being required to contribute to health insurance for their workers. It would also allow states to set up insurance cooperatives alongside a national government health insurance plan.

SENATE EDGING CLOSER

In the Senate, Republicans and Democrats negotiating a healthcare reform deal also got a boost from congressional budget analysts who priced their bill at less than $900 billion over 10 years — below some cost estimates of $1 trillion or more.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus said the Congressional Budget Office reported the plan would reduce the federal deficit, spur employer-provided health coverage and provide insurance coverage to 95 percent of Americans.

Three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance panel have edged closer to a deal this week that could form the heart of an eventual Senate healthcare plan.

“I am confident they will get a bill … a bipartisan bill will come out of that committee,” Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid told reporters.

Senator Charles Grassley, one of the panel’s three Republicans involved in the talks, said in a Reuters interview the negotiators were making great progress but tough issues remained on financing and cost containment.

Senate Finance negotiations focused on a plan that would use nonprofit cooperatives to compete with private insurers to drive down costs, not the government option plan favored by Obama and many other Democrats.

The Senate panel also is likely to back a tax on high-cost insurance policies to raise revenue and keep costs down. nN29176517

Dick Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranked Democrat, said the lack of a public insurance option in the Finance Committee bill was not what he and many other Democrats wanted, but he was encouraging senators to stay patient.

Obama had asked both the Senate and House to come up with initial draft bills before the August recess, but that deadline is dead in the Senate and nearly impossible in the House. When they return, they will negotiate a joint bill that Obama hopes to sign into law this year.

Healthcare industry officials welcomed the efforts.

“We applaud the efforts of Baucus and Grassley to try to make it a bipartisan approach because we think that will be thoroughly vetted and one where I think we’re going to get more sustainable solutions coming out of it,” Angela Braly, chief executive of health insurer WellPoint Inc told Reuters.

A New York Times/CBS News poll showed 69 percent of Americans were concerned their care would suffer if there were on a government-run plan. But 49 percent said they backed fundamental changes and 66 percent feared losing their insurance if the government does not act.

The poll had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Susan Cornwell, Kim Dixon and Richard Cowan; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Anthony Boadle)

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A public healthcare option is dead in the Senate and thus probably won’t happen, a source tells columnist James Pethokoukis. Democrats may soon have to tell the troops and interest groups that if you want some kind of healthcare bill, give up pushing for a public option.   Blog | Full Coverage 

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Pregnant women infected with the new H1N1 swine flu have a much higher risk of severe illness and death, U.S. government researchers said on Wednesday, confirming a trend that has worried global health experts.

While pregnant woman have always had a higher risk of severe disease from influenza in general, the new H1N1 virus is taking an exceptionally heavy toll, the researchers said.

“We do see a fourfold increase in hospitalization rates among ill pregnant women compared to the general population,” Dr. Denise Jamieson of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a telephone interview.

“We’re also seeing a relatively large proportion of deaths among pregnant women. We report 13 percent in the paper, but that is a very unstable number based on a small number of deaths reported,” said Jamieson, whose study appears in the journal Lancet.

The study was based on the deaths of six pregnant women out of 45 deaths related to H1N1 reported to the CDC between April 15 and June 16.

All of the women were healthy prior to infection, and all developed pneumonia and needed to be put on a ventilator.

Jamieson said 302 deaths have been officially reported to the CDC from the new H1N1 virus.

“Among those, we have relatively complete information on 266 deaths. And of those, 15 have been among pregnant women, which is about 6 percent,” Jamieson said.

Given that at any point, about 1 percent of the U.S. population is pregnant, she said, pregnant women “are definitely over-represented in terms of the proportion of deaths.”

She said pregnant women do not need to change the way they live because of the new H1N1 flu.

“There is no reason to delay pregnancy or to be overly concerned. We do not have evidence that pregnant women have increased susceptibility or are more likely to acquire influenza,” Jamieson said.

“It’s just that when they have influenza they are at increased risk of having severe disease,” she said.

Jamieson said pregnant women who suspect they have influenza should call their doctors promptly.

And she said doctors need to provide a separate waiting area for pregnant women who suspect they are ill, to protect healthy pregnant women from infection.

Jamieson said pregnant women with influenza should be given antiviral drugs as soon as possible, within the first 48 hours to be most effective.

Despite recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that all pregnant women get a seasonal flu shot, less than 14 percent do, according to the CDC.

The ACIP, which advises the CDC, is meeting later on Wednesday to decide who should be first to get the new H1N1 vaccine.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Vicki Allen)

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A public healthcare option is dead in the Senate and thus probably won’t happen, a source tells columnist James Pethokoukis. Democrats may soon have to tell the troops and interest groups that if you want some kind of healthcare bill, give up pushing for a public option.   Blog | Full Coverage 

By Donna Smith and John Whitesides

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Lawmakers on both sides of the U.S. Capitol struggled to reach a healthcare deal on Tuesday, with Senate Democrats near agreement with three Republicans on a plan that would not include a government-run insurance option backed by President Barack Obama.

After more than six hours of closed-door meetings, however, Democrats in the House of Representatives said they had not reached a deal with rebellious fiscal conservatives and it was unlikely they would vote on a healthcare overhaul before heading home for their August recess at the end of the week.

House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer said there would not be a vote on Friday and there was a “pretty slim” chance lawmakers would be held for a vote on Saturday. “We’re trying not to foreclose our options,” he told reporters.

Obama has pushed for a measure that will rein in healthcare costs, improve care and cover most of the 46 million uninsured Americans, making it his top legislative priority.

Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee said they were close to success in bipartisan negotiations with three panel Republicans — even if the full group does not take up the bill before the break starts on August 7.

“Whether we get through markup or not I can’t tell you today. But I am confident we’ll have a concept we’ll agree on,” Senator John Kerry, a Democratic member of the panel, told reporters.

NON-PROFITS AND TAXES

The Senate Finance negotiations have zeroed in on a plan that would use non-profit cooperatives to compete with private insurers to drive down costs, members say, not the public plan favored by Obama and many Democrats.

The panel also is likely to back a tax on high-cost insurance policies to try to raise revenue and keep costs down.

The White House said it would wait until it sees the bill to comment on the cooperative approach, which is certain to disappoint some Democrats even if it wins over the three Republicans involved in the negotiations.

“I have done a lot of reading on the history of co-ops and it is not a nice history,” Senator John Rockefeller told reporters after a closed-door meeting of Democrats.

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad said the approach would use non-profit associations at a state, regional and national level and could attract some 12 million people.

He said the U.S. government could provide about $6 billion in start-up money to help healthcare cooperatives meet reserve requirements. Any co-op would need about 25,000 members to be financially viable and about 500,000 members to negotiate competitive rates with providers, he said.

Shares of U.S. health insurers rose broadly on Tuesday on hopes a health reform bill would not include a government-run option, which has drawn strong opposition from insurers who fear it would destroy the private marketplace.

The S&P Managed Health Care index of large U.S. health insurers closed 6.5 percent higher.

Aetna rose 12.6 percent, Coventry was up 12.7 percent and Cigna was 7.7 percent higher, all on the New York Stock Exchange. Centene rose 7.9 percent.

NO BLUE DOG DEAL

Obama’s drive for a broad overhaul of the healthcare industry has been stalled in the Senate and House of Representatives, both controlled by his fellow Democrats. It has been hit by a deluge of criticism over the cost, scope and funding of the more than $1 trillion measure.

Republicans in both chambers have slammed the plans as an expensive first step to a government takeover of healthcare. No Republican has come out in favor of any of the plans so far, although the three Senate Republicans have worked with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to find agreement.

An August deadline to approve initial versions of the bill is dead in the Senate and on life support in the House, where conservative Democrats known as “Blue Dogs” have held up a vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee over cost concerns.

Members of the group met with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Energy Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for several hours on Tuesday afternoon and again Tuesday night.

Representative Mike Ross, a leader of the group, said there were still 12 issues of disagreement. “It might be impossible to come to a resolution on some of them,” he told reporters.

“We continue to talk,” he said as the final meeting broke up. Talks will resume in the morning. “I’d like to think we’re making progress,” Ross said.

Obama, who over the past week has lobbied hard for the overhaul plan, said there was no time to lose.

“The costs of doing nothing are trillions of dollars in costs over the next couple of decades — trillions, not billions,” Obama told a town hall meeting conducted by AARP, a lobbying group for seniors.

“I understand people being scared that this is going to be way too costly,” he said. “It’s not too costly if we start making changes right now.”

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Rick Cowan and Jackie Frank; Editing by John O’Callaghan and Eric Beech)

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A public healthcare option is dead in the Senate and thus probably won’t happen, a source tells columnist James Pethokoukis. Democrats may soon have to tell the troops and interest groups that if you want some kind of healthcare bill, give up pushing for a public option.   Blog | Full Coverage 

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday silver-colored dental fillings that contain mercury are safe for patients, reversing an earlier caution against their use in certain patients, including pregnant women and children.

“While elemental mercury has been associated with adverse health effects at high exposures, the levels released by dental amalgam fillings are not high enough to cause harm in patients,” the FDA said, citing an agency review of roughly 200 scientific studies.

Still, in final regulations issued on Tuesday as part of an earlier legal settlement, it said the fillings were now considered “moderate risk” devices and will include details about the risks and benefits of the products. They will also carry warnings against their use in patients with mercury allergies or in poorly ventilated areas.

Millions of Americans have such fillings to patch cavities in their teeth and the FDA said it does not recommend patients have them removed. The fillings, also known as amalgams, are a combination of other metals and mercury, which at certain levels has been linked to brain and kidney damage.

In 2006, Moms Against Mercury and three other groups sued the FDA to have mercury fillings removed from the U.S. market. Later that year, an FDA panel of outside experts said most people would not be harmed but that more information was needed.

Mercury — whether in dental, vaccines, fish or other products — has generated much controversy. Some consumer groups contend the fillings can trigger a range of health problems such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.

Part of the problem is that while much is known about high exposures to heavy metals, questions remain about “what is happening at chronic low-level exposure over a lifetime,” said Urvashi Rangan, the director of technical policy for Consumer Reports, whose group was not part of the initial lawsuit.

But Susan Runner, acting director for the FDA division that oversees dental devices, said there was no “causal link” between amalgam fillings and health problems.

“The best available scientific evidence supports the conclusion that patients with dental amalgam fillings are not at risk,” she told reporters on a conference call.

Over the past 20 years, the agency has received just 141 reports of problems in patients with the fillings, she added.

That conclusion counters a statement the agency made last June that the fillings may cause health problems in pregnant women, children and fetuses.

The FDA’s decision could impact makers of metal fillings, which include Dentsply International Inc and Danaher Corp’s unit Kerr, as well as distributors such as Henry Schein Inc and Patterson Cos Inc.

Shares of Dentsply closed up than 21 cents at $30.80 on the Nasdaq while shares of Danaher closed down $1.18 at a $60.66 on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of Henry Schein closed down 18 cents at $50.24 and Patterson closed up 4 cents at $24.41.

According to the American Dental Association (ADA), about 30 percent of fillings given to patients are mercury-filled, with a growing number of patients instead opting for lighter, tooth-colored options such as resin composites.

Alternative products include glass cement and porcelain as well as other metals such as gold, but they are more expensive. and considered less durable.

The ADA, which represents the dental industry, backed the FDA’s decision not to restrict mercury fillings, saying alternatives are also considered “moderate risk” by the FDA.

“The FDA has left the decision about dental treatment right where it needs to be — between the dentist and the patient,” ADA President Dr. John Findley said in a statement.

But Charlie Brown, a lawyer for Consumers for Dental Choice, said poorer people or those who receive their health care through large institutions such as the U.S. military are more likely to receive the cheaper, silver-colored fillings and are at greater risk for harm.

“Most consumers, and most dentists, have already switched to the main alternative, resin composite,” said Brown, whose group was part of the lawsuit settlement last June that called on the agency to issue more specific rules. His group is now weighing its legal options, he said.

Moms Against Mercury President Amy Carson said she was disappointed in the FDA’s reversal. Her group, along with several others, filed a new petition with the FDA on Tuesday, again calling for a ban on mercury fillings, she added.

(Editing by Leslie Gevirtz, Andre Grenon and Carol Bishopric)

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A public healthcare option is dead in the Senate and thus probably won’t happen, a source tells columnist James Pethokoukis. Democrats may soon have to tell the troops and interest groups that if you want some kind of healthcare bill, give up pushing for a public option.   Blog | Full Coverage 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government plans to give state and local government more money to fight obesity, including investments in public transportation, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Tuesday.

She said healthcare reform efforts being worked out by Congress represented an opportunity to boost government funding in programs to get more fruits and vegetables into school lunches and encourage grocery stores to sell more fresh produce in poor communities.

“We finally have a plan,” Sebelius told an obesity conference sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Washington.

She said most of $1 billion appropriated by Congress for disease prevention as part of the economic stimulus plan would go to a CDC-planned initiative to fight obesity, heart disease and other chronic conditions.

“A significant amount of the money will go to help states and communities attack obesity and other public health challenges,” Sebelius said.

A report released at the conference on Monday found that obesity costs the U.S. health system $147 billion a year.

“The American Cancer Society estimates that all cancers combined cost our health care system $93 billion a year. So ending obesity would save our health care system 50 percent more dollars than curing cancer,” Sebelius said.

She praised a 2006 initiative headed by former president Bill Clinton and the American Heart Association that persuaded soft-drink makers to limit some of the sugary drinks sold in school vending machines. CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden told the meeting he supported a soft drink tax.

SERVE HEALTHFUL FOOD

Sebelius said the federal government could do more to encourage healthy habits.

“That means offering more nutritious meals not just in public schools but also in child care centers, recreation centers, senior centers, and other government buildings,” she said.

People also needed more healthy food options in their neighborhoods, Sebelius said, adding that many Americans had no access to supermarkets selling fresh produce where they lived.

She also called for more physical education classes for children and investments to encourage walking, biking and use of public transportation.

She said the government would fund programs like one that buses girls to dance lessons in California.

A report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released at the conference found that many school districts were inconsistent in promoting healthier eating. Strong nutritional requirements often went hand-in-hand with weak restrictions for food sold a la carte or in vending machines.

Only 18 percent of elementary students were enrolled in a districts with strong policies requiring daily recess.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)

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A public healthcare option is dead in the Senate and thus probably won’t happen, a source tells columnist James Pethokoukis. Democrats may soon have to tell the troops and interest groups that if you want some kind of healthcare bill, give up pushing for a public option.   Blog | Full Coverage 

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Obesity-related diseases account for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. medical spending or an estimated $147 billion a year, researchers said on Monday.

They said U.S. obesity rates rose 37 percent between 1998 and 2006, driving an 89 percent increase in spending on treatments for obesity-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, arthritis and other conditions.

Obese people spent an extra $1,429 per year or 42 percent more for medical care in 2006 than did normal weight people, with most of that spent on prescription drugs, the researchers said.

The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, was released at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Weight of the Nation conference in Washington, where the CDC issued 24 new recommendations on how communities can fight back.

“It is critical that we take effective steps to contain and reduce the enormous burden of obesity on our nation,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said in a statement.

For the study, Eric Finkelstein of the non-profit research institute RTI International and researchers at the CDC and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality analyzed national medical cost data from 1998 and 2006.

More than 26 percent of Americans are obese, which means they have a body mass index of 30 or higher. BMI is equal to weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared. A person 5 feet 5 inches tall becomes obese at 180 pounds (82 kg).

Finkelstein’s team found obesity accounts for 9.1 percent of all medical spending in the United States, up from 6.5 percent in 1998.

“What we found was the total cost of obesity increased from $74 billion to maybe as high as $147 billion today, so roughly double over that time period,” Finkelstein said in a telephone interview.

Obesity accounts for 8.5 percent of health costs among people on Medicare, the federal program for the elderly and disabled, and 11.8 percent of costs from Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for the poor.

An obese Medicare beneficiary spends an $600 more per year on drug costs than a normal weight person on Medicare, the team found.

“One of the big drivers is diabetes, which has been estimated to cost as much as $180 billion per year. There is evidence that most of the diabetes in the U.S. is caused by excess weight,” Finkelstein said.

To address these issues, the CDC has devised 24 obesity prevention strategies being tested in Minnesota and Massachusetts.

They aim to address issues in the environment — lack of access to healthy food in poor neighborhoods and sedentary lifestyles — that contribute to the nation’s weight problem.

“All of these factors just make it easier to be overweight and harder to be thin,” Finkelstein said.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Vicki Allen)

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Reuters provides an in-depth look at the issues facing Americans as the Obama administration wrestles with healthcare policy.  Full Coverage