Last week, the Biden administration passed a rule allowing for the government healthcare programs Medicare and Medicaid coverage of a class of weight-loss drugs that promises to help millions of people lose weight and become healthier. This decision by the White House begs the question: Why wait until after the election to pass a popular proposal that will help millions of working-class Americans afford weight-loss drugs they currently cannot afford to purchase themselves?
A lot of the press analysis portrays this White House decision as a shot by President Biden at the incoming Trump administration, forcing the potential new Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has cast doubt on the benefits of these drugs, to either keep this Biden era provision or take critical medical coverage away from millions of working-class Americans who rely on government subsidized healthcare.
But my clear understanding of the White House decision to cover GLP-1 weight loss and diabetes drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic/Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro/Zepbound is that this was not a shot at the incoming Trump administration, but rather, a willingness of the president and the vice president to rebuke the progressive wing of the Democratic Party which has vociferously opposed this new policy. Indeed, lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have waged a personal crusade against the makers of these drugs to reduce their profits.
That is what the progressives are so upset about: the profits by the drug makers. Indeed, progressives would rather block low-income Americans from accessing these medications – by opposing Medicare and Medicaid coverage – than allowing the pharmaceutical makers to profit from expanded access to their products. Indeed, my understanding is that some leading progressives in the Congress and at the White House launched last minute efforts to derail this decision by the president and vice president.
My organization has been urging the Biden administration for most of the last year to allow Medicare and Medicaid to cover these drugs for obese patients who cannot seem to lose weight. In our opinion, this was both good public policy and great politics. After all, if we can – and should – send billions of dollars of military aid to Israel and Ukraine to defend themselves, surely, we can afford to help working-class Americans lose weight and live healthier.
In fact, my organization recently conducted polling in several critical swing states in the last election, and our polling was conclusive that government coverage of these weight-loss drugs was popular with voters. This is from an op-ed our pollster published in Real Clear Health:
Based on our polling in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona: it is clear that voters want the government to help them afford these GLP-1 drugs.
When asked: “If recommended by a doctor, Medicare should cover prescription drugs for weight loss for adults diagnosed with obesity,” in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona 84% of respondents agreed with that assertion. In Wisconsin, that number was slightly higher at 85%. These findings indicate broad, bi-partisan support for Medicare coverage of these GLP-1 drugs and Vice President Harris should take notice.
After all, in Pennsylvania, our survey found that 30% of respondents answered that they are “much more likely” to vote for a candidate that supported Medicare coverage of these weight loss drugs.
Wouldn’t it have been great if the Biden administration made this decision on weight-loss drugs before the election and could have campaigned on a massive new government program to help working-class Americans afford these drugs only available to the wealthy who can afford to buy them without government support?
But time and again, when the Democratic Party tries to assuage the progressives, it only hurts our chances at winning national elections. This could not have been more evident than the election earlier this month where Democrats lost campaigns up and down the ballot because Republicans are making stronger appeals to working-class Americans.
This decision by the Biden administration could end up costing taxpayers over $30 billion dollars, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. But I believe that a healthier nation is worth that price and that there are going to be considerable cost savings for taxpayers, because healthier people spend less on medical care. For these reasons, I am confident that the Trump administration will not overturn this decision to help working-class Americans afford life-altering weight-loss drugs through Medicare and Medicaid.
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