Media Contact
The Biden administration plans to require Medicare and Medicaid to offer coverage of weight loss medications. It is up to the incoming Trump administration whether to finalize the proposal.
John Cawley
Professor, Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy
John Cawley, professor of public policy and economics at Cornell University, researches the economics of diet, physical activity and obesity.
Cawley says:
“The Biden Administration’s decision to allow Medicare to cover drugs for weight loss is a positive step that aligns Medicare coverage with the modern interpretation of obesity as a chronic disease. This will undoubtedly be a costly treatment to cover, given the high costs of the GLP-1 drugs. However, GLP-1s are already on the list of drugs for the next round of Medicare drug price negotiations.
“By reducing obesity, these drugs will generate some degree of cost offsets in the form of avoided medical care for obesity-related illnesses. My research shows that there are essentially no cost offsets at all for people whose BMI is around 30 (the threshold of obesity). However, there are, on average, substantial cost offsets for those with extreme or morbid obesity.”
