The Joe Biden administration announced this Tuesday, November 26, that it wanted to make next-generation obesity treatments accessible to millions of Americans, a reform that could be difficult to implement before Donald Trump comes to power in January.
The federal health insurance system for the elderly (Medicare) and that for the most disadvantaged (Medicaid) today reimburse medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy almost exclusively to patients who suffer from diabetes or heart disease.
The regulations proposed on Tuesday by the Democratic Government aim to expand this support for the treatment of obesity, a change that could affect nearly 7.5 million people covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
“Too expensive” treatments
More than 42% of the adult population is obese, according to health authorities. But “for too many Americans, these essential training sessions are too expensive and therefore inaccessible,” a White House official said.
However, it is not clear whether the Democratic executive will be able to effectively implement this reform before the new Donald Trump administration takes office on January 20, 2025.
The former and next Republican president appointed Robert Kennedy Jr., known for his anti-vaccine stances, as Minister of Health. But if you’re committed to fighting junk food and related chronic diseases, you’ve been pretty unfavorable to these new obesity treatments.
Reluctant Kennedy Jr.
Financing a very large reimbursement for this treatment could cost “3 billion dollars a year,” he denounced at the end of October on Fox News, adding: “If we spent a fifth of this money to give three good, authentic meals a day to ” “For every man, woman and child in this country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight.”
The Biden administration has increased efforts to try to lower the price of several medications in the United States, where they tend to be much more expensive than in Europe.
The Democrat asked in early July, along with leftist Senator Bernie Sanders, that the companies that sell these new anti-obesity treatments lower their prices.
The Danish pharmaceutical laboratories Novo Nordisk (Ozempic and Wegovy) and the American Eli Lilly (Mounjaro and Zepbound) currently dominate the market with these treatments that mimic a hormone secreted by the intestine, GLP-1.
Initially developed against diabetes, these drugs have given unprecedented results in helping to lose weight and are hailed by specialists as a possible therapeutic revolution, although concerns persist about their side effects and the risk of taking them outside of any medical control. . -above.
Source: BFM TV
