Joe Biden’s administration announced Tuesday that it wanted to make new generation anti-obesity treatments accessible to millions of Americans, a reform that could be complicated to implement before Donald Trump comes to power in January.
• Also read: What is Mounjaro, this new anti-obesity treatment?
• Also read: Medicines against obesity: health professionals disappointed that Quebec turns a deaf ear
• Also read: Ozempic microdosing is gaining popularity: here’s what experts think
The federal health insurance system for seniors (Medicare) and that intended for the most disadvantaged (Medicaid) today reimburse drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy almost exclusively for patients who suffer from diabetes or heart disease.
The regulations proposed Tuesday by the Democratic government intend to extend this support to the treatment of obesity, a change which could affect nearly 7.5 million people covered by Medicare and Medicaid.
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,” said a White House official.
However, it is uncertain whether the Democratic executive will succeed in effectively implementing this reform, before the new administration of Donald Trump takes office on January 20, 2025.
The former and next Republican president appointed Robert Kennedy Jr., known for his anti-vaccine positions, as Minister of Health. But if he is committed to the fight against junk food and related chronic diseases, he has been rather unfavorable to these new treatments against obesity.
Financing a very large reimbursement for this treatment could cost “3 trillion dollars per year,” he denounced at the end of October on Fox News, adding: “If we spent a fifth of this money to give three good, real meals a day to every man, woman and child in this country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight.”
The Biden administration has increased initiatives to try to lower the price of several drugs in the United States, where they are often much more expensive than in Europe.
The Democrat called at the beginning of July, alongside left-wing senator Bernie Sanders, for companies selling these new obesity treatments to 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 which imitate a hormone secreted by the intestines, 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, even if concerns remain about their side effects and the risk of seeing them taken outside the box. of any medical check-up.
