Get ready to open your wallets, America – not for a gym membership, but so your neighbor who treats a salad like it’s radioactive can get their weekly miracle injection. The Trump Administration is (wrongly) floating a plan to use your tax dollars to fund weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy for folks on Medicare and Medicaid. That’s millions of people getting a pricey pass to skip the treadmill and head straight to the pharmacy.
Do you remember the catchy advertising song you’ve seen on TV…
Looks like oh, oh, oh Ozempic and the Wegovy folks are going to CLEAN UP on profits.
The bill to the government (us)? Estimates are coming in at a casual $35 billion to $66 billion over the next decade according to the Congressional Budget Office. And we all know that if those are estimates, the REAL tab will be far higher. No big deal. Just the GDP of a small nation so Americans can keep chasing donuts with Diet Coke and still fit into a wedding outfit.
The pitch? Obesity is a chronic disease. The spin? This is about long-term savings on diabetes, heart disease, blah blah blah. The reality? It’s about bailing out millions who made lifestyle choices – not all, but a whole lot – and now want a quick fix and a syringe to undo decades of drive-thru decisions.
While some Americans struggle to get actual needed medical care to be covered by the government, Bob down the street who thinks Doritos are a food group is going to try to shed some pounds on your dime.
These GLP-1 drugs aren’t cheap. Ozempic can run $1,000 a month without insurance. Even with manufacturer discounts, Medicaid programs saw spending skyrocket from $577 million in 2019 to $3.9 billion in 2023. And it’s only climbing.
Sure, there are cases where these meds make sense – like diabetics or people with legitimate metabolic conditions. But the GLP-1 drugs for those things are already covered. What we’re talking about now is widespread taxpayer-funded vanity prescriptions because cardio is hard and willpower is boring.
Dr. Robert Klitzman, a Columbia University bioethicist, has warned about the potential economic fallout for paying for drugs that cost about $12,000 a year. He told Newsweek, “If two-thirds of Americans needed them, it would bankrupt the health care system.”
Nevertheless, the Trump administration (and this was also an idea floated by the Biden administration) seems to be moving full steam ahead on this horrible idea.
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Trump’s team says the program is just a five-year test. But we all know that when these things get going, they never get stopped. So next time you’re counting pennies at the gas pump or passing on avocado toast, remember: your money’s helping someone else’s bad lifestyle choices.
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