“Outrageously” priced weight-loss medication might bankrupt US well being care

Enlarge / Packaging for Wegovy, manufactured by Novo Nordisk, is seen on this illustration picture. (credit score: Getty | Jakub Porzycki)

With the debut of remarkably efficient weight-loss medication, America’s excessive weight problems price and its uniquely astronomical prescription drug pricing seem like set on a catastrophic collision course—one which threatens to “bankrupt our total well being care system,” in keeping with a brand new Senate report that modeled the financial affect of the medication in several uptake eventualities.

If simply half of the adults within the US with weight problems begin taking a brand new weight-loss drug, comparable to Wegovy, the collective price would whole an estimated $411 billion per yr, the evaluation discovered. That is greater than the $406 billion Individuals spent in 2022 on all pharmaceuticals mixed.

Whereas the majority of the spending on weight-loss medication will happen within the business market—which might simply result in spikes in medical health insurance premiums—taxpayer-funded Medicare and Medicaid packages will even see a unprecedented monetary burden. Within the situation that half of adults with weight problems go on the drug, the fee to these federal packages would whole $166 billion per yr, rivaling the packages’ whole 2022 drug prices of $175 billion.