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 […]
October 9, 2024 — For a decade now, we’ve been waiting for the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to publish a budget estimate for covering obesity care in Medicare. Yesterday, they finally did it. They told us the cost for covering these meds might start at $1.6 billion in 2026 and rise to $7 billion by 2034. They saw 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 […]
July 3, 2024 — Nope, says Dr. Alissa Chen. Medicare shouldn’t start covering obesity medicines. Her dad, 72, has obesity that began when he was in grad school and has persisted throughout his life. Now he has the cardiovascular disease that often results from untreated obesity. But no, she doesn’t want him to receive treatment with advanced medicines proven […]
June 28, 2024 — With a bipartisan a vote of 36-4 yesterday, the House Ways and Means Committee passed an amended version of TROA – the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act. Honestly, after a decade of toiling away to educate legislators about the need for this, we need a pinch to assure ourselves it’s real. This is great news […]
June 27, 2024 — Today for the first time ever, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee will be marking up the Treat and Reduce Obesity Act on Capitol Hill. This is a big deal simply because it means that finally, after a decade of advocacy efforts, Congress is getting serious about obesity care in Medicare. Technically, what the […]
March 28, 2024 — A new economic analysis in JAMA Network Open brings unsurprising news: manufacturing costs for GLP-1 agonists are a tiny fraction of the price for these important medicines. This is always the case for innovative prescription drugs that must recover billions of dollars of development costs in order to be profitable. The response from policy makers […]
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 […]
December 14, 2023 — New research from the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation offers a pretty clear picture. The research team sums it up succinctly. “Medicare doesn’t cover obesity drugs, but 76% of older adults think it should.” Yes, public pressure is building for access to obesity medicines. Survey Research of Adults 50 to 80 […]
December 6, 2023 — The Zepbound brand of tirzepatide is now available in U.S. pharmacies. This is a big deal because this launch marks the emergence of serious competition for advanced obesity medicines. Even (or perhaps especially) in healthcare, money indeed makes the world go around and one of the best checks on greed is competition. So as Zepbound […]
