A universal health care system could be of significant benefit in the reduction of obesity and diabetes. Ozempic (Semiglutide) is a great example of why.
According to the Trust for American Health, approximately 41.9% or 110.1 million adults are overweight/obese in the US. Obesity contributes to many health problems, including Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, and arthritis. In the past, there were limited options for treating obesity. Many of the medications had unacceptable side effects and could not be taken for a long period of time. Weight loss programs such as Weight Watchers™ had some limited success, but even if people were successful in losing weight, they often regained much of it over time.
A new class of diabetes medications, GLP-1 inhibitors, have been shown to cause significant weight loss, even in people who do not have diabetes. The demand for these drugs has exploded, as has the cost for the drugs, often making it impossible for people to be treated with them. Novo Nordisk, which makes the GLP-1 inhibitors Ozempic and Wegovy, has made record profits – $23.6 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2023, with 52% of this revenue coming from Ozempic and Wegovy alone.
The current cost of a month’s supply of Ozempic in the U.S. is $936 while it is $103 in Germany and $83 in France. Many insurance companies have refused to cover the cost of these medications, which has put treatment out of reach for millions of people.
Donna (not her real name) is 38 years old and has been obese for most of her adult life. She is working but has minimal insurance through her employer. After a recent trip to the ER for a kidney infection, she was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and fatty liver. She was given a prescription for medications for her diabetes and high blood pressure and was told that she needed to lose weight or she could end up with liver failure and, eventually, kidney failure. Her insurance refused to cover medications that would treat her diabetes and help with weight loss due to the cost, even though it could be cost-effective in the long run to prevent those problems in people like Donna.
Even if the insurance company knows that treating people with an expensive drug might reduce the costs associated with complications related to obesity, they may still be reluctant to cover the medication. This is because there is a reasonable chance that the people who need the medicine will no longer be on their insurance plan by the time they experience the future consequences of their obesity. The insurance company can save money in the short run by refusing to cover the weight loss drugs while deferring the medical and financial costs of obesity into the future – and hopefully to another insurance carrier.
A universal healthcare coverage system could help in situations like this by eliminating the incentive to push costs down the road. Another benefit would be the ability to negotiate prices with the drug companies so that they receive fair payment for drug research and development while allowing people access to lifesaving and life-enhancing medications. In addition, if people were covered from “cradle to grave” by a single-payer system, their long-term health would be taken into account when deciding how best to deliver the right treatment at the right time.