The Biden administration introduced a proposal yesterday to expand Medicare and Medicaid coverage to include popular weight-loss medications like Wegovy and Zepbound. The initiative, led by the Department of Health and Human Services, would classify obesity as a treatable disease to reduce associated health risks including heart disease and diabetes.
Roughly 40% of Americans are considered clinically obese. Weight-loss drugs can reduce weight by as much as 15% to 25% by regulating appetite, signaling to the brain that the body is full, and reducing hunger. The proposed rule could reduce out-of-pocket costs for the drug—which can exceed $1,000 per month—by up to 95% for over 7.4 million Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. The estimated cost to taxpayers is $35B over the next decade.
The rule would not be finalized until after President-elect Donald Trump takes office; his HHS pick, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has criticized the drugmakers, instead seeking to prioritize access to healthy nutrition.
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Absolutely NOT!. The problem is the food people eat and not necessarily how much. Vegetable and seed oils, chemical additives like dyes and preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, processed and ultra-processed foods that have taken over our food supply is the culprit in the obesity and disease epidemic we have now.
These weight loss drugs do cause weight loss but what are the side effects? Long term it’s not clear but what is already know is that as soon as you stop taking the drug, all the weight comes back. Another negative side effect that has been seen is people are finding they can no longer digest food because their intestines are permanently paralyzed, that’s how the drug works.
These weight loss drugs are not the answer, fixing our food is.