January 13, 2025 — Many years of working on obesity has taught us one thing. Success does not come easily. And yet in this new year, it appears that the new administration in Washington will have an opportunity to claim an easy win on obesity. CMS has a new rule for obesity drugs that can become final in the […]
January 9, 2025 — The docket is open for you to lend your support until January 27. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing to open up access to obesity medicines in both of the programs they oversee. This is something that we – with virtually every advocate for obesity care – have been seeking for […]
January 3, 2025 — “Yes, by all means, let’s eat more arugula. But let’s not turn our back on the role of human ingenuity in making America healthier.” This is how Rich Lowry, Editor in Chief of the National Review, tried this week to make sense of the coming salad of health policy that we will call arugulazempic. Give […]
December 16, 2024 — The closing days of 2024 give us a moment to reflect on the stories that defined this year in obesity and health. It’s been a big year, with no shortage of news on this subject. But the major themes stand out very clearly. Health Outcomes Beyond Weight Loss This was the year that objective evidence […]
November 26, 2024 — Well, this is exciting. The news just flashed across our screen that the outgoing Biden administration is proposing to open up Medicare and Medicaid to coverage for obesity meds. Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers Medicare and Medicaid Services, said: “We don’t want to see people having to wait until they have these additional diseases […]
March 22, 2024 — This is a striking change. Until now, the steadfast refusal of CMS to allow coverage of any obesity medicine by Medicare has been unwavering. Then two weeks ago, FDA granted a new indication for semaglutide for persons with both heart disease and obesity to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and deaths. Now CMS says it’s A-OK […]
October 3, 2022 — Health insurers, including Medicare, are regarding obesity meds like Botox Cosmetic, when they should be thinking of them more like a knee replacement. This observation, from a report by Jamy Lee in MarketWatch, sums up the challenge for people seeking obesity care in a health system that pays for the complications of untreated obesity, but […]
June 30, 2022 — Okay, this is hardly a final victory, but it sure does feel good. The U.S. House Appropriations Committee released its legislative report on funding for Health and Human Services. It’s a beastly 623 page document that goes over all the spending priorities for the department. However, if you dig deep into it, there’s a paragraph […]
January 19, 2022 — A new study in Obesity tells us that telehealth can work just fine in obesity care. But what will the future hold? Payers and patients will likely have their their say. Already, telehealth businesses have had quite a bumpy ride. A prime example would be Teledoc, which saw its stock soar from $83 per share […]
October 23, 2019 — We have an effective treatment for preventing diabetes. It cuts the risk by 60 percent in people with prediabetes. For every person on Medicare, it saves $2,650. In just 15 months. But Medicare can’t figure out how to make it available to the people who need it. This is the sad story of implementing the […]
