States Are Walking Back Medicaid Coverage for GLP-1s

[byefatlicia]

Opinion | States Are Walking Back Medicaid Coverage for GLP-1s

Obesity drugs are more than just 'weight loss' medications

www.medpagetoday.com

"It is hard to imagine an insurance company denying chemotherapy to treat cancer or insulin for type 1 diabetes, but insurance companies (public and private) routinely deny treatment for obesity."

If an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...
I guess they opt for paying for the pound of cure. Pun intended

 

[AndyPanda]

GLPs for obesity are optional. I don’t want to pay for other people to be on these drugs when I’m already paying for myself to be on them.

 

[BooneDonk]

I hate to be the person, but GLPs for obesity are optional. I don’t want to pay for other people to be on these drugs when I’m already paying for myself to be on them.

We are paying for the treatments for obese people for the “problems” we are avoiding already by paying for them ourselves

Edit: one way or another we pay for those on these entitlements

 

[byefatlicia]

I don’t want to pay for other people to be on these drugs when I’m already paying for myself to be on them.

I couldn't agree more. My point is that "kicking the can down the road" costs more from the effects of obesity than the treatment of if. Especially if the states limit the greed of BP.

 

[yobculture]

I hate to be the person, but GLPs for obesity are optional. I don’t want to pay for other people to be on these drugs when I’m already paying for myself to be on them.

I love to be the person who is happy for my taxes to go toward helping people less fortunate than I am and to help them better their lives and be healthy. I don’t care that I'm paying for my own.

 

[indolent]

I think it's important that all payers (private insurance, public insurance, individuals) push back hard--including refusal--when bad players selectively overcharge. Ozempic costs insurance companies in the US >than $1,000 a month, while in France (as one example) the same company sells the same drug for an unsubsidized <$90 a month.

The insurance companies aren't primarily to blame, and the threat of future costs doesn't change the equation in the US any more than it does in France.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ozempic-1-300-more-expensive-110407376.html

I love to be the person who is happy for my taxes to go toward helping people less fortunate than I am and to help them better their lives and be healthy. I don’t care that I'm paying for my own.

Are major Novo Norodisk shareholders less fortunate than you are? (Now they're crying because their extreme overvaluation got ahead of them, but still!)

 

[AndyPanda]

I love to be the person who is happy for my taxes to go toward helping people less fortunate than I am and to help them better their lives and be healthy. I don’t care that I'm paying for my own.

If they are on Medicaid it’s a pretty safe assumption that our taxes are probably paying to make the same people fat by allowing them to make poor choices and buy ultra processed foods and sugary beverages with food stamps. So, you are also happy to be hurting/enabling them?

 

[Jfrick11]

That’s an oversimplification that ignores both the reality of poverty and the actual data. SNAP and Medicaid exist to prevent worse outcomes—hunger, untreated illness, homelessness—not to “make people fat.” Processed food is cheap and accessible because of how our food system is structured, not because people on assistance want to harm themselves. If we care about health outcomes, the solution is making healthy food more affordable and accessible, not blaming people for surviving within the options they have.

If they are on Medicaid it’s a pretty safe assumption that our taxes are probably paying to make the same people fat by allowing them to make poor choices and buy ultra processed foods and sugary beverages with food stamps. So, you are also happy to be hurting/enabling them?

 

[yobculture]

That’s an oversimplification that ignores both the reality of poverty and the actual data. SNAP and Medicaid exist to prevent worse outcomes—hunger, untreated illness, homelessness—not to “make people fat.” Processed food is cheap and accessible because of how our food system is structured, not because people on assistance want to harm themselves. If we care about health outcomes, the solution is making healthy food more affordable and accessible, not blaming people for surviving within the options they have.

Agree. It’s a really gross generalization and it plays into stereotypes that I don’t even want to get into.

All I can say is that if it helps to save lives for GLP-1s to be covered by Medicade, I'm all for it. I would not want to be that person who didn’t want to help those in need.