A Tax-Free Wellness Sauna? Sure. Obesity Meds? Not So Fast.
It’s an old refrain. Life is not fair. If you want confirmation of that, just take a look at evolving health policy in the U.S. People of modest means who need obesity medicines to prevent suffering, disabilities, and a premature death cannot get them. But a tax-free wellness sauna for people with a big bankroll? Step to the front of the line.
A MAHA-Friendly Model of Medical Spending
For help with your tax-free wellness sauna you can turn to a wellness company run by one of the top advisors to HHS Secretary RFK Jr. himself – Calley Means. He is a special government employee charged with implementing the MAHA agenda. He’s also co-founder of a wellness venture called Truemed. Writing in the New York Times, Ron Lieber and Benjamin Mueller explain:
“Operating in a little-known corner of the nearly $5 trillion health care system, Truemed helps supply people with letters attesting to their medical need for products like red-light masks, Peloton bikes and $9,000 saunas. With those letters, the company tells people, they can use health savings or flexible spending accounts to buy the items. The accounts allow people to set aside a limited portion of their income, without paying federal income tax, for qualified medical expenses.”
Because Means is a special government employee, he is exempt from tedious conflict of interest disclosures to the public. But we have assurances from him that he’s not working on anything that would benefit his business. Nope. He’s working on the big wellness goals of MAHA.
Lieber and Mueller report that Truemed has online medical providers who are quite efficient in providing letters of medical necessity to support the deductibility of a vast array of drug-free expenses. All to promote wellness.
Meanwhile, Obesity Care Requires Deep Pockets
This sure looks like wellness for the wealthy. Likewise, obesity care already goes disproportionately to people with deep pockets. But people with less wealth simply can’t bear a $500 monthly expense for a GLP-1 that many, if not most, health plans won’t cover. And with policies that favor wellness for the wealthy and trillion-dollar Medicaid cuts, it is obvious that things are heading in the wrong direction.
So we must work and ask and vote for better policies – to give everyone a fair shot at health and wellness.
Click here for the reporting from Lieber and Mueller. For more on health, wealth, and wellness scams, click here, here, here, and here.
Barrel sauna in Lahälla, Sweden, photograph by Ann-Sophie Qvarnström, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
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July 19, 2025
