Why Won’t Medicare Cover Obesity Medications?
Although bipartisan legislation to provide Medicare coverage for obesity treatments has circulated in Congress for more than a decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) ventured to estimate the budgetary effects of such a policy for older Americans starting in 2026 for the very first time in a report published in October.
The CBO should be commended for conducting this comprehensive analysis. But we are the first to admit that there’s still a long way to go before this change happens. Medicare, by statute, is still prohibited from paying for the use of obesity medications — a policy that is discriminatory and a reflection of the stigmatization of obesity. The popular focus on the costs of obesity medications to Medicare distracts from the need to treat obesity like every other chronic disease.
Excerpted from Stat News
