Biden administration proposes Medicare, Medicaid coverage of pricey weight loss drugs

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

69% : However, television personality and physician Mehmet Oz, who Trump plans to nominate for CMS administrator, has expressed support for GLP-1s on his talk show and on social media.
55% : Access to the newest anti-obesity drugs has also been patchwork for the 72 million Americans in Medicaid.
55% : The new rule would expand access to the drugs to an estimated 3.4 million people on Medicare and 4 million people in Medicaid, according to a White House press release.
55% : As for Medicaid, the federal government expects to spend $11 billion over ten years, while states will pick up an additional $3.8 billion, according to Medicaid director Dan Tsai.
54% : But "people with obesity deserve to have affordable access to medication and support," Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on a call with reporters Tuesday.More than 40% of Americans are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
49% : It's uncertain how states will respond to the proposal, given Medicaid is already often the No. 1 or No. 2 line item on state budgets.
47% : This is about treatment of a chronic condition," Meena Seshamani, the director of Medicare, said on the Tuesday call with reporters.
43% : And many millions of Americans on Medicare have had no access to weight loss drugs, due to legislation passed two decades ago preventing the program from covering such medications.
43% : The federal government expects to spend about $25 billion on weight loss drugs in Medicare over 10 years, a figure that could exacerbate existing financial stress on the program.
38% : Currently, Medicare is barred by statute from covering drugs for weight loss, while only a handful of state Medicaid programs pay for the medications.
31% : The Biden administration on Tuesday proposed a rule that would allow Medicare and Medicaid to cover weight loss drugs for patients with obesity.
30% : Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump plans to nominate for HHS secretary, has been critical of the weight loss drugs, arguing in the media that a cheaper way to address obesity would be expanding the availability of healthy food.

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