Zuccala said the surgery for the "morbidly obese" is probably one of the most successful types of surgeries available.

"There is no medicine that can cure diabetes," said Zuccala, director of weight loss at Danbury Hospital. "There is a chance this surgery can cure diseases. I can't think of any better outcome from surgery."

The surgery costs between $25,000 and $35,000 and some insurance companies either restrict coverage or won't cover the cost at all. Zuccala said the surgery could save insurance cost by eliminating ailments such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and sleep apnea. It could also alleviate arthritis pain and prevent various forms of cancer.

"It's a short-sighted view by the insurance companies," Zuccala said. "It's a large up-front cost but the long-term significance will show a decrease in costs."

Some lawmakers are using that argument to push legislation that would require all insurance companies to cover the cost of weight reduction surgery if a doctor deems it medically necessary.

Under the bill, only people with a body mass index of 30 or higher would be eligible for insurance coverage. A 6-foot-tall man would have a BMI of 30 at a weight of around 225 pounds

While the surgery may have merits, well-intentioned mandates have a history of unintended consequences, said Senate Minority Leader Louis DeLuca, R Woodbury, the ranking member on the legislature's insurance committee that is reviewing the bill.

"The same people that always want mandates are the same people who always complain about the cost of health care. It's mandates that drive the cost of health care up," DeLuca said. "Twenty years ago Hartford was known as the insurance capital of the world. Now the capital is in Iowa. There are 50 something mandates on insurance companies. When I came to the legislature there was 15."

Sen. Joseph Crisco, D-Woodridge, the co chairman of the insurance committee, favors the proposal and said a mandate isn't always a bad thing.

"We should look at the cost and benefit, not just cost," Crisco said. "I think we would find that we might spend X amount to do this, but we would save Y plus Z. It could be quite a savings. If we can get the human suffering eliminated and lives saved we can eliminate future costs."

Crisco said the bill may not pass this year because lawmakers are still trying to determine how to define what is medically necessary, but he says if it doesn't come to a vote this year, he will bring it up next year.

In Connecticut, many major plans offer coverage only for companies with large numbers of employees. Others are considering offering the coverage for an additional charge or dropping coverage altogether.

"What we're starting to see is an increase in what we would consider at best, unnecessary, and at worst, unsafe, surgery," said Keith Stover, a lobbyist for the Connecticut Association of Health Plans said in a public hearing for the bill last week. "Many plans decide the best course of action simply is to exclude coverage."

Dr. Daren Tishler, director of bariatric surgery at Hartford Hospital, said the surgery is necessary.

"This is not by any means cosmetic surgery as the opponents of the surgery might argue," Tishler said. "We know how effective this surgery is. It is puzzling why insurance companies might not want to cover the procedure."

Tishler said the number of times the surgery is done has been increasing as people become more aware of the problems affiliated with obesity. He said in 2004, about 120,000 people in the United States had the surgery.

The procedure is done by cutting a small hole in the stomach the size of a thumb and inserting a camera so doctors can view the patient's insides on TV monitors in the surgery room. The surgery involves using staples to separate a small pouch at the stomach's top from the rest of the stomach, which causes a person to feel full after eating a limited amount of food. The procedure also involves bypassing much of the small intestine so that less food is absorbed into the body. This allows a person to burn more calories than they consume.

Complications strike as many as 1 in 5 patients having the surgery, and it has a 1 percent mortality rate.

Connecticut isn't the only state considering such a law. Georgia is looking at similar legislation this year, while Louisiana offers coverage to some state employees.

For more information go to www.cga.ct.gov and look up House Bill 130.