January 20, 2025 — Two years ago, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed a bill into law to provide better access to obesity care under the state’s Medicaid program. This includes access to GLP-1 medicines. Now, it seems, the state is flouting the law. So people with obesity who rely on Medicaid are left out in the cold if they […]
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 […]
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 […]
September 7, 2024 — Recently, Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen did a rare interview with NBC News to talk about the high price of obesity medicines that are proving to be so important for so many people. It seemed like a dress rehearsal for his coming appearance at a Senate hearing on the subject. He brought up the […]
August 16, 2024 — Is the price for health equity in obesity care too high? Or do policy makers simply not care to make it a priority? Writing in the Washington Post, Reverend Al Sharpton tells us that advances in obesity care bring an appalling failure of health equity into plain view: “Despite rates of obesity among people of […]
June 3, 2024 — The STOP Obesity Alliance released new data Friday from an exhaustive analysis of access to obesity medicines in Medicaid programs across the United States. It’s not a pretty picture. It gives us more data to show how we are marginalizing people with the greatest need for obesity care. No state fully covered all forms of […]
April 17, 2024 — GLP-1 agonists offer an opportunity to reduce health disparities, writes Karen Kaplan in the Los Angeles Times. But a problem with equity in obesity care is getting in the way. So instead, it seems they may be making things worse. Cardiologist and health services researcher Lauren Eberly tells Kaplan: “These patients have a higher burden […]
March 20, 2024 — There is a hot debate playing out in medical journals and editorials all over the country. How can we pay for the advanced obesity medicines for which people are expressing such a great need? What often gets lost in this discussion is the fact that we are already paying. Yesterday, we had the good fortune […]
