Two of President Trump's top health nominees are on a collision course as the incoming administration faces key decisions about insurance coverage for a breakthrough anti-obesity drug.
Mehmet Oz, President-elect Trump's pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has extolled the benefits of anti-obesity drugs like Ozempic and touted them on his show and social media channels.
“In general, I think the benefits of these drugs are great by helping people lose weight and improving their cardiovascular system. They also have long-term effects in many other areas where obesity causes inflammation. ” Oz said on Instagram. post last year.
Oz's potential boss, Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr., believes drugs are a scam and that the solution to obesity is simply eating better.
“The first thing you have to deal with is your lifestyle. You need to eat well and make sure you don't get obese,” Kennedy told CNBC's Jim Cramer in a Dec. 12 interview.
in interview Kennedy suggested on Fox News in October with Greg Gatfield that weight loss drugs are being forced onto gullible Americans by foreign drug companies that are unwilling to sell the drugs at home.
Foreign companies “expect us to sell it to Americans because we're so stupid and drug addicted,” Kennedy said.
“If we gave every man, woman and child in our country three good meals a day, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight,” he added.
President Kennedy made similar comments in a post about X in September.
“When I serve in the next administration, I will address our sick food system and corrupt government institutions to make this country healthy again,” he wrote. “In the meantime, maybe you should consider replanting your vegetable garden before sending more money to Denmark.”
Kennedy's position also appears to be at odds with Trump's newly prominent adviser, Elon Musk, who co-leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a government advisory committee focused on reducing government spending. It seems so. Musk has previously credited Wigoby with helping him lose weight, and recently said the drug should be made more widely available.
“Nothing can help improve Americans' health, longevity, and quality of life more than by making GLP inhibitors available to Americans at ultra-low prices,” Musk said. Posted at X earlier this month. “There's nothing else like it.”
Widely divergent views among some of President Trump's senior advisers and Cabinet nominees could lead to conflicts within the incoming administration over whether to allow Medicare coverage of life-changing drugs. , you will be forced to make an expensive decision.
Medicare is currently prohibited from covering weight loss drugs for purposes other than treating conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. Currently, only 13 states cover GLP-1 drugs for obesity in Medicaid.
But a new proposal announced by the Biden administration in November would require Medicare and Medicaid coverage of weight loss drugs for obese patients.
This could affect insurance coverage for millions of Americans and would be a very popular measure. But it also comes with a price tag in the tens of billions of dollars, with anti-obesity drugs costing more than $1,000 a month.
Authorizing anti-obesity drugs in Medicare would increase federal spending by about $35 billion from 2026 to 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Approximately 3.4 million people on Medicare and 4 million people on Medicaid will be eligible.
It will be up to the Trump administration to decide whether to proceed with this plan.
“This is kind of a unique situation where the Biden administration is proposing this change and essentially handing it over to the incoming Trump administration to finalize,” said Juliet, deputy director of Medicare policy at KFF, a healthcare policy research institute.・Mr. Cubansky said.
“And I think it's an open question at this point as to what the incoming Trump administration will choose,” she said.
Kubansky said the final rule would likely be issued in late spring or early summer 2025, making it one of the earliest decisions the new administration will face. Comments are expected to be submitted by January 27, just one week after taking office.
The final decision is likely to come from the White House, and the level of influence Mr. Oz or Mr. Kennedy has over the process could depend on how quickly the Republican-controlled Senate approves it.
There is bipartisan interest in Congress to allow Medicare to cover anti-obesity drugs, but price remains the biggest hurdle. The conservatives in power are aiming to cut spending next year, and leaving the decision up to the government could ease pressure on lawmakers.
CBO's analysis also considered potential additional savings that could arise if semaglutide-based drugs such as Ozempic and Wigovy become subject to Medicare price negotiations next year, as most expected. do not have.
“I think the cost of expanding insurance coverage is kind of holding back policymakers, so this proposal would definitely solve that problem,” Cubansky said. spoke. “They won't have to change the law. This is just a reinterpretation of existing statutory language.”
Christine Gallagher, associate director of research and policy at the STOP Obesity Alliance, said she is optimistic that President-elect Trump and his potential medical team recognize the benefits of expanding coverage of anti-obesity drugs.
“These are no longer weight loss drugs. These are drugs designed to treat obesity as a disease,” Gallagher said.
Mr Gallagher said there was reason for optimism. She pointed to recent statements by President Kennedy that appeared to indicate a softening of his stance.
President Kennedy said in an interview with CNBC that anti-obesity drugs “have a place.”
