Medicare proposes covering weight-loss drugs, teeing up clash with RFK Jr.

Source: Washington Post

The Biden administration Tuesday will propose expanding coverage of weight-loss medications for millions of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, a late-term proposal that officials said would boost public health and which puts pressure on the incoming Trump administration to finalize the benefit.

The proposal is “a game changer. It helps us recognize that obesity is with us,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in an interview late Monday. “It’s severe. It’s damaging our country’s health. It’s damaging our economy.”

Becerra said the proposal would expand coverage of antiobesity drugs to 7.5 million people enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid, which his agency projected would add $25 billion in Medicare costs and $11 billion in Medicaid costs during the next decade. States would also assume $4 billion in additional costs as part of their share of the Medicaid program, he said.

Becerra said the additional costs represented a modest fraction of the forecasted spending for Medicare, citing estimates that the program is expected to spend more than $2 trillion on drugs across the next decade.

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