Trump's hand-picked advisers have opinions about weight-loss drugs -- and all could have sway over whether Medicare covers them.
When it comes to blockbuster weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic, opinion among some of President-elect Donald Trump's top advisers and health policy nominees appears deeply split.
Elon Musk says they helped him shed pounds. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thinks they're a scam. And Dr. Mehmet Oz? He pitched them on his show.
Those divisions are raising questions about whether Trump's new administration will allow Medicare to start covering the medications to treat obesity, as Biden officials recently proposed. It's a decision that could potentially affect treatment options for millions -- and cost tens of billions in federal spending.
"Who's going to carry more sway at the end of the day? I don't know," said Michael Ciarametaro, a managing director at the healthcare consulting firm Avalere. "I just know the implications are quite significant."
Because Medicare is currently banned from covering drugs prescribed to help with weight, GLP-1s such as Ozempic are only available through the program to address certain chronic ailments, such as diabetes or heart disease. That could change under a draft rule the Biden administration put forward in November that would greenlight them as a treatment for clinical obesity, which affects about 25% of Medicare Part D enrollees, or just over 12 million seniors, according to the government.
The rule shift would also require state Medicaid programs to begin covering GLP-1s for obesity, making the drugs -- which can cost upward of $1,000 a month out of pocket -- much more widely accessible to low-income Americans. Today, just 13 states offer such coverage.
It's unclear, however, whether the Trump administration will go along with the proposal, which it would have to finalize and implement. While incoming officials have yet to weigh in on the Medicare proposal directly, they're divided on the drugs' value in general.
Kennedy, who has been nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, dismissed GLP-1s last month and criticized their cost while appearing on Fox News's "Gutfeld!"
Foreign companies are "counting on selling it to Americans because we're so stupid and so addicted to drugs," he said. The government, Kennedy suggested, would be better off trying to cure obesity by giving families "good food, three meals a day."
Kennedy's position on the drugs seemingly puts him at odds with Dr. Oz, Trump's nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manages federal insurance programs and is overseeing the writing of the new regulation. As the Washington Post recently reported, Oz has for years promoted Ozempic and Wegovy on his daytime talk show, including in lengthy segments sponsored by their manufacturer, Denmark-based Novo Nordisk (NVO). In an Instagram post last year, he said that while the drugs' long-term side effects still needed to be studied, they "afford us a huge opportunity."